MY ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY
I acknowledge my privilege in living on land stolen from the Gunaikurnai people in Metung East Gippsland; custodians for 120,000 years of respect and responsibility, care and connection to this place.

My gratitude for being welcomed by the oldest living culture in the world, holds me in obligation to learn, with permission, the humility in being one with country; to learn how to see country with my ears and hear country with my eyes, I acknowledge the Un-learning I need to do in deconstructing the colonising British and European migrant mindset I absorbed in my youth, echoing and ricocheting at every turn, every look.

Allowing silence when walking, so silence speaks, land wind water and everything speaks and is alive.

Arriving in Australia after many cultural experiences throughout Papua New Guinea in 1971, the culture shock I underwent enabled me to reassemble myself through making art at the South Australian School of Art, Adelaide. I acknowledge the power of this land is regenerating my spirit with an obligation to open to, respect and be in conversation with the land in my own backyard, down the Wallaby track or under the city!
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About EcoArt Systems Australia

Director of EcoArt Systems Australia Catherine van Wilgenburg’s interdisciplinary collaborative EcoArt practice straddles painting, performance art, installation and community cultural development projects. It is inspired by relationships with Wurundjeri elders and environmental scientists at Iramoo Grassland Reserve, St Albans & Cairnlea in Melbourne’s West and now with Gunaikurnai elders and GLaWAC in East Gippsland.

EcoArt Systems Australia is a set of tools: 
  • Jigsaws for drawing on for small groups to map roles and responsibilities, governance for structuring projects
  • Temporary Tattoos of endangered species to embody fauna and flora for festivals, stalls, school workshops, conferences
  • Cards & Card making workshops incorporating stamps of local endangered species
  • Paintings and Prints exploring the decolonisation journey
  • Aerial ecological artworks to regenerate endangered habitats with school and community group participation

Current projects include:

Born British, Catherine travelled throughout Europe before teaching in Mt Hagen, Papua New Guinea, where she experienced Indigenous life and death ceremonies connecting to land and spiritual life. Arriving in Australia she studied Visual Art at the South Australian School of Art and developed her arts practice through working in culturally diverse communities throughout Australia.

For more details, please see Catherine's complete CV and her Arts & Education CV.

Director of EcoArts Systems Australia Catherine van Wilgenburg

Catherine van Wilgenburg
Director of EcoArt Systems Australia
MA Vis Arts, B.Ed.

Drone image of Stage 4 of the Eastern Barred Bandicoot Toolkit project