I acknowledge and pay respect to custodians – past present and emerging – on sovereign Dharawal Wodi Wodi land where I live and conduct this creative practice. I extend this respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. As a beneficiary of a colonial continuum and the resulting disproportionate distribution of wealth across this continent – I Pay the Rent – and invite you to do so too.

Bianca Hester

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Bianca Hester’s practice explores entanglements of materiality, place and the forces of ecological change across timescales, producing expansive artworks that cultivate new modes of attentive and relational embodiment amid the pressures of climate crisis.


Recent work investigates interconnections between colonial inheritance, extraction, environmental crisis, evolution and extinction across the Australian continent. Employing relational, embodied and situational methodologies – she combines experimental fieldwork, engaging the geologic record (in archives and in situ), site-writing, sculptural production, collaboration and performed actions – to develop projects that unpack the material conditions of specific places. This results in an expansive form of public art unfolding in dialogue with a range of interlocutors and participants.

Deeptime Coastline Walking Series Various sites across the Illawarra
(2024)

EVENT DATES
Throughout October, 2024


In association with the Deeptime Coastline symposium in the context of the Lithic Bodies project

VENUE
Various locations across the Illawarra


CURATED
Bianca Hester and Bronwwyn Bailey-Charteris in collaboration with Matt Poll


CULTURAL ADVICE
Uncle Peter Button, Peter Hewitt, Nicole Smede, Tyson Frigo


WALK LEADERS
Leah Gibbs
Uncle Peter Button
Leon Fuller and Emma Rooksby

The Deep Time Coastline walking series invited participants to experience the Illawarra escarpment and coastline on Dharawal land through movement, conversation, and multisensory engagement. These walks unfolded as situated encounters with the region’s stratigraphic layers, ecologies, and cultural histories—tracing connections between ancient geological formations and contemporary climate challenges. Led by artists, curators, and knowledge holders, the series created space for shared learning and reflection in situ, foregrounding the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of walking as a collective method in place. Curated and produced by Bianca Hester and Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris in collaboration with Matt Poll, the walking series offered an embodied approach to understanding and caring for this complex landscape, cultivating attentiveness to its deep-time narratives and precarious futures.

Sunday 13 October

SHARK!
Led by Leah Gibbs


Leah led a walk that explores the underwater world from the shore to consider how we negotiate our relationships with the animals that spark both awe and fear: sharks. The state of NSW holds a multi-pronged program to protect people from perceived threat posed by sharks. The strategy focuses on fishing gear—gillnets and anchored hooks, known as drumlines—designed to catch and ‘remove’ animals, by killing or relocating. Such methods pit humans and sharks in conflict with one another. And yet, we know that people and sharks meet regularly without harm to either. Together, we’ll consider other ways of relating with the ocean, and imagine other possible futures.


Leah Gibbs is an Associate Professor in Human Geography at the University of Wollongong. Her research and teaching explores relationships between people and nature, particularly in the context of environmental damage and injustices. She has written on oceans and other watery places, and the processes that threaten and sustain them.

Saturday 19 October, 2024

Sacred land
Led by Uncle Peter Button


Sandon Point in Bulli is a sacred site that holds enormous significance in the Illawarra, being the place engaged by Dharawal people for gathering and ceremony for thousands of years, and where bones of a Karadji (cleverman) emerged after the floods of 1998. Uncle Peter was a key participant in the protest against planned development of the site which began in the year 2000 with a sacred fire that was kept burning for 4 years on location.


Uncle Peter Button is a respected Aboriginal elder, environmental and cultural advocate. He was awarded Wollongong Aboriginal Male Elder of the Year 2022, is a co-founding member and caretaker of the embassy at Sandon Point and the current chair of the Illawarra Local Aboriginal Land Council.

Sunday 20 October, 2024

Remnant forest ecosystems of the Illawarra Escarpment
Led by Leon Fuller and Emma Rooksby


Leon and Emma will lead a walk through a pocket of rainforest situated on the Illawarra Escarpment, southwards from Bulli Pass. This track, on the upper bench of the escarpment, winds through eucalypt forest and Illawarra Subtropical Rainforest. The forest communities are representative of those in the northern part of the Illawarra District along the escarpment. The tall wet sclerophyll forest supports eucalypts such as Blackbutt, Blue Gum and White Topped Box, with an understorey of many plants. The rainforest contains many species characteristic of this section of the escarpment, such as; Red Cedars, Giant Stinging Trees, Sandpaper figs, Cabbage Palms and many other species including a plethora of ferns. The highly diverse understorey points to the future of the rainforest, when today’s seedlings mature into tomorrow’s canopy trees. The walk will be mainly on-track with some off-track walking, guided by local topography, vegetation and the paths visible to us as we make our way through the forest.


Led by Leon Fuller (author of Wollongong’s Native Trees) and Emma Rooksby (Chair of Landcare Illawarra and winner of the City of Wollongong Environmental Achievement Award 2023), co-instigators of the Growing Illawarra Natives project.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body, and the NSW Government through Create NSW.

The walking series was funded by the City of Wollongong.

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