‘No-longer a wandering spirit’ 

Animating kinship imaginaries of Bessy Flowers

This event tells the story of my collaboration with two Australian Aboriginal family groups – Wirlomin Minang Noongar families from the Great Southern of Western Australia and Koorie families from eastern Victoria with a continued connection to the Lake Tyers Aboriginal Trust Bung Yarnda and the country of their ancestors. At the heart of this collaboration is the history of their ancestor Elizabeth Bessy Flowers held in a colonial archive for more than 150 years yet markedly absent from the stronghold stories of her Flowers Wirlomin Minang Noongar kin and Bryant Koorie descendants. It is about the Flowers and Bryant families reclaiming agency of Bessy’s memory through culturally framed imaginaries and enduring practices of kinship. Inspired by the childhood portrait of Bessy taken by a colonial settler in the early 1860’s the families share the collective experience of visiting historical sites that map their ancestor’s past and in doing so they emotionally reinstate a place for Bessy’s memory within everyday stories of identity. Most significantly Bessy is spiritually returned to the resting place of her Minang Noongar ancestors – a site of breathtaking beauty that is Noongar boodja (country). 

The funds will be used to support an event at the State Library of Victoria. The event will be the screening of a 20 minute mixed media animation that tells the contemporary story of Bessy Flowers. In 1867 Bessy was moved from the Annesfield Native Institution in Albany to the Ramahyuck Moravian Mission in eastern Victoria. When I first met Bessy's Noongar kin and Koorie descendants in 2009 they were unaware of their ancestor's history. Since this time we have collaborated to restore a memory of Bessy as part of their everyday stories. Therefore Wirlomin Minang Noongar families from the Great Southern of Western Australia and Koorie families from eastern Victoria will attend the event to share their stories about Bessy and explain why they needed to reclaim her history from the archive as an Indigenous story. 

 Pictured is a photograph of Bessy's great-grandchild, Keith Bryant.

The mixed media animation project has been funded by the 2015 Melbourne City Council Arts Program. The Pozible campaign will be used to fund two parts of the SLV event. Part One is for travel funds to support a Noongar Elder's attendance at the event.  Ezzard Flowers is the key note speaker of the event and also the narrator of the mixed media and animated story to be screened. Funds raised for Part One will also support the travel of five Victorian Koorie Elder women (Bessy's great-grandchildren) from east Gippsland to Melbourne. The Koorie Elder women will participant in an open discussion with the SLV audience after the screening of the mixed media animation (total cost of P1 is: $1800). Part Two of the Pozible campaign is to fund Djirri Djirri Wurundjeri Women's Dance Group to perform a welcome to country for the attending audience (total cost of P2 is: $1200). 

Pictured are the Bryant great-grandchildren of Bessy Flowers.

BUDGET:

Part One

Return airfare (Perth to Melbourne) x 1 (for Ezzard Flowers) $650

Return train travel (east Gippsland to Melbourne) x 5 (for Bessy's great-grandchildren) $550

Speaker Fees x 6 (Ezzard plus five Koorie Bryant Elder women) $600

Part Two

Djirri Djirri Wurundjeri Women's Dance Group (Welcome to Country Ceremony) $1200

                           Pictured is Wirlomin Minang Noongar Elder Ezzard Flowers.

The SLV event will be advertised online at the end of October as part of the SLV Summer Whats On Program. The event is free but will require an online RSVP. If you donate funds to this Pozible campaign time you will be supporting two Australian Aboriginal family groups to tell the story of their ancestor on Victorian country for the first time in history. The families have met only once before. This was in 2013 when I supported the travel of five Koorie Elder women from their homes in eastern Victoria to Albany. This trip was the first time Bessy's descendants had experienced the homeland of their ancestor which is Minang Noongar country (Albany). The SLV event is an opportunity to engage a broader audience with the remarkable story of Bessy Flowers as told by her  Noongar (Western Australia) and Koorie families.

         Bessy's Victorian Koorie descendants in Western Australia for the first time in 2013. 

All photographs copyright Sharon Huebner.

I have been working with the Victorian Aboriginal community for the past 15 years. This has included the completion of doctoral research project at the Monash Indigenous Centre. The most significant challenge of the SLV event is ensuring that the Noongar (Western Australia) and Koorie participants feel comfortable sharing the story of their ancestor to a 200 plus audience after the screening of the animation mixed media project (which is a combination of historical  and contemporary photographs as well as digital video and sound). To meet this challenge meetings have been scheduled with Bessy's Koorie descendants prior to the SLV event and where required scripts will be developed. Ezzard Flowers is the keynote speaker, and is very competent at public speaking and telling stories. In 2015 Ezzard was awarded the John Curtin medal at Curtin University in Western Australia.