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Black women rising: new bronze sculpture for Circular Quay
Sydney's Circular Quay will be home to a new sculpture that celebrates First Nations Women. At 5.5 metres high, Badjgama Ngunda Whuliwulawala, meaning Black Women Rising in the Dharwal language, is a bronze sculpture of an Aboriginal woman rising powerfully from water.
'She's in a body of water, and she's almost forming as she's coming out of country," artist Alison Page said. 'She rises in a way that gives her a lot of sorts of spiritual potency and a lot of energy, but it just makes it more spiritual." Page, an award-winning Dharawal and Yuin artist, developed the work in conversation with curatorial and cultural advisor Rhoda Roberts, culture and heritage expert Rowena Welsh-Jarrett and members of the Sydney Coastal Aboriginal Women's Group, made up of more than 20 women from La Perouse and Redfern.
'I wanted to do a woman coming out of the earth, but it had to ... represent all women," Page said. 'I didn't want it to be an individual, like the way white fellas represent their figures in history, in bronze. "It was a decision of the Coastal Women's Group very early on to make this work about all women.' The figure's design also represented the deep connection Aboriginal people have to Country.
'We went camping on Cockatoo Island (in Sydney Harbour) and we started talking about this figure and it was important that she become part animal and part woman," Page said. 'We decided to focus on the whale, which is our totem, the Dharawal totem, and so she's got the belly of a whale." Badjgama Ngunda Whuliwulawala will be unveiled outside the Waldorf Astoria Sydney hotel at Circular Quay next year. Page wanted to create a sculpture that embodied a figure coming through layers of steel, glass and concrete, while being both a part of and extensions of Country.
'And to also be there on such a permanent level like we can never be erased again," she said. "It's just a moment of huge pride for our women. 'What we're really marking is our survival, our continued connection to Country, and also our female power in a white man's world."
