Title: Bunya nuts with sunflowers
Location: Oakey, Queensland, Australia
Artist: Fintan Magee (Australia)
Year: 2022
“This work explores shared experience through food. The work features Bunya nuts, sunflowers, wheat and other bush foods. First Nations people in Oakey live in close proximity to the Bunya Mountains. One of the most important cultural sites in south east Queensland. The Gubbi Gubbi or Bunya pine grows to a height of 50 metres and produce large cones which contain 60 bunya nuts. Traditionally once every three years between December and March a bumper harvest of nuts is produced, it is in this time that the Bunya gatherings occurred. With invited indigenous groups from all over Queensland and as far as Victoria and Western Australia would gather. The gatherings were social but also diplomatic: with knowledge and information shared, kinship obligations observed, disputes and complaints resolved and ceremonies conducted. The last Bunya gathering occurred in 1902 but have been re-established in recent years in a modern context. The work also includes wheat and sunflowers which are local crops grown in and around Oakey, the work explores the shared cultural heritage and natural history of the area.”
Fintan Magee
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Categories: OperArt, Street art
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