Venessa Possum: Gulumun

30 Nov 2024 – 9 Feb 2025

I am a Dharug-Muringong artist living in the Blue Mountains and pay my respects to Ngurra and my ancestors, in turn honouring paths of connectedness with neighbouring footsteps and voices.

In recent years, I have embarked on a profound path of personal learning and growth, digging deeply to uncover embedded ways of being and doing a gulumun practice from long ago. A gulumun, also known as a coolamon, is not just a significant cultural artefact but a vessel of Indigenous traditions. Crafted from various materials and techniques, it serves to carry and preserve valuable items.

A highly significant role for a gulumun is in preparing for a birth, symbolising the potential to hold and nurture a new life. It also plays a crucial part in sacred Indigenous smoking ceremonies, where it is used when it’s not possible to place fire directly on Ngurra (Country). The gulumun, therefore, is a powerful symbol of reverence for ancestral presence and ecologies, including land, water, and cosmos, and inherent respect for ‘all of life’ sustenance and sustainability.

My exhibition highlights the potential for carrying an open and experiential gulumun. Symbolic presences include footsteps and voices of Ngurra – Earth and Sky Country guiding my muru, a path of ways towards embodied cycles of inspiration, intuition, creativity, and serendipity. My gulumun practice is enriched by an embodiment of relational material cultures informing diverse and layered expressions. Imprints of Ngurra are experienced as a threshold ‘in the making’ and ‘informing’ an accumulation of values, being mindful of the potential for suspended thoughts within an emerging gulumun archive.

VENESSA POSSUM Gulumun, linen with Buran and Mundowi bush dye (Stringybark and Swamp Mahogany), 30 x 45 x 70 cm