Banarru

vinyl text and charcoal

Moorina Bonini’s practice  challenges the ongoing cultural theft and appropriation that occurs within Western institutions. Banarru (ashes) is the latest iteration of an ongoing, site-specific mode of working, in which Bonini uses charcoal and text to structurally interrogate the gallery space. Bonini considers City Gallery Wellington and The National Library a potent site to bring this work of Indigenous resistance to Aotearoa for the first time. 

The english text within Banarru comes from Bonini’s spiritual writing practice. The markings, made directly onto the gallery’s walls, are created with charcoal.  Bonini comes from the Yorta Yorta and Wurundjeri  people in the Kulin Nation and Wiradjuri peoples located in central New South Wales,  in so called Australia.  

Bonini’s written and gestural statements are cultural marks, drawing our attention to the colonial foundation of the institutional spaces in which she makes them. By engaging her bawu (body) to physically mark the gallery, Bonini embeds her embodied act of Indigenous resistance into the built environment. By bringing this work into the context of Aotearoa, Meditations signals our shared fight against colonial control.

Banarru was presented in the exhibition Mediations at City Gallery Wellington, Te Whare Toi in 2024. Curated by Israel Randall, Mediations featured new works by Moorina Bonini (Yorta Yorta, Wurundjeri, Wiradjuri), Lily Dowd, Te Ara Minhinnick (Ngaati Te Ata) and Dr Areta Wilkinson (Kai Tahu). Exhibition documentation by Matt Henry.