The Stony Rises Project

Vicki Couzens

“My work is inspired by my culture. It is my passion for the reclamation, regeneration and revitalisation of our cultural heritage knowledge and practices that drives me and informs the work that I do. The images and installations I create are drawn from the teachings of our Ancestors, Old People and Elders who guide me through my life. Land, language and identity are who we are ... through the use of language, stories and image our culture is made stronger, our connections are made stronger, we are made stronger.”

Vicki Couzens is a prominent artist and Keerray Wurrong/Gunditjmara woman from the Western Districts of Victoria. Her work encompasses a range of media, including painting, installation, mixed media, sculpture, printmaking, public art and possum skin cloak making. She manages an arts business Kaawirn Kuunawarn Hissing Swan Arts through which she develops her own art works and develops and consults on community art and culture projects. In 2003 Vicki received the inaugural Deadly Art award and has exhibited widely, and undertaken numerous public commissions including the production of a possum skin cloak for the 2006 Commonwealth Games. Her work is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Victoria as well as numerous public galleries in Australia. Together with Lee Darroch and Treahna Hamm, Couzens designed Victoria’s largest indigenous public art display, Birrarung Wilam, on the north bank of the Yarra River at Birrarung Marr. As a descendant of the Gunditjmara and Keerray Wurrong clans and plays an active role in promoting the culture of her people and has been instrumental in reviving the possum skin cloak-making tradition of her ancestors. She has served on the boards of the Koorie Heritage Trust Inc and the Victorian Corporation for Aboriginal Languages.

The Stony Rises Project

A NETS Victoria Touring Exhibition developed by the RMIT Design Research Institute. Curators: Lisa Byrne, Professor Harriet Edquist and Associate Professor Laurene Vaughan

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