Join the Derby community as they celebrate the launch of Wurnan: Sharing on Ngarinyin Country. 

Saturday February 21st, at the Mowanjum Arts Centre.

This event is free, please come along and join in on the fun!

About the book

Central to safeguarding the Wilinggin culture, land and language is the practice of ‘Wurnan’, the traditional philosophy of sharing and sustainability that underpins their custodianship.

This book takes you around the campfire where stories are shared and knowledge is passed on. Where memories bubble up about the old days when single-use rafts were hastily constructed using dry pandanus wood and sheets of paperbark to cross a swollen river during the wet season; when a messenger carried news of an upcoming ceremony on a carved wooden stick for hundreds of kilometres across the countryside; when the crack of clap sticks awoke the earth, bringing on the rains and keeping the Country fresh.

Wilinggin Country is an area as vast and varied as Tasmania. The landscape offers distinctive materials that inform the traditional crafts that are made, such as string from the bark of a boab tree, or spindles made from the cypress pine. Understanding this emporium of materials available, and the stories embedded within, brings the Country to life. Combining evocative photography with first-hand quotes and stories from Wilinggin people, this book takes the reader to this far-flung corner of Australia and immerses them within longstanding cultural traditions that are being given a new life in a modern context, providing an ancient perspective on contemporary sustainable design.

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