Yirannali:
The Quiet Project
replanting a shared future together
Heart of our nation
Reconciliation
A Moment in Time:
A moment in time can encapsulate a timeless truth. Such was the case when the Reverend Lancelot Threlkeld and Biraban et al shared a quiet moment under the cliff named Yirannali adjacent to Newcastle South Beach.
Threlkeld did refer to the English-speaking Biraban (aka M’Gill) as ‘my Black tutor’, and so it was on this occasion:
’There is a sort of sacred place near Newcastle on the sea-beach, beneath a high cliff, named Yi-ran-na-li, where, it is said, that if any person speak, the stones will fall down upon them, from the high arched rocks above, the crumbling state of which is such as to render it extremely probable, that the mere concussion of air from the voice would cause the effect to take place. I was once walking beneath the projecting rock and called loudly to M’Gill, who with other blacks, were with me, he instantly beckoned me to be silent, at which I wondered, a few small stones fell down from the crumbling overshadowing cliff at that moment, and they urged me on. When we had passed out of the precincts of the fearful place, I asked what they meant by commanding my silence, and pushing on so quickly, without speaking? This elicited the tradition of the place as being a very fearful one, for if anyone speak whilst passing beneath the overhanging rocks, stones would invariably fall as we had just witnessed.’
From the Christian Herald, 17th February 1855, Vol.III pp.5-6 [Reprinted in Gunson (1974) p.65]:
The exact date of this encounter is unknown, but it may have been between 1825 and 1826 since Threlkeld lived in Newcastle at that time and did take a couple of trips to ‘Red head’, presumably via a coastal path ‘beneath the projecting rock’ of Yirannali.
Project Origins:
Novocastrian author and publisher, Paul F Walsh OAM, included the above Threlkeld reminiscence in the national bestseller Novocastrian Tales at the time of Newcastle’s Bicentenary in 1997.
Many years later, Paul had a vision of a traditional life sculpture at Yirannali to honour this historic moment when Biraban advises the Reverend Lancelot Threlkeld to be quiet.
Paul viewed this moment in time as particularly significant in terms of the continuum of reconciliation since the black man is advising the white man of matters pertaining to the black man’s country rather than the other way around.
Indeed, the phrase ‘they urged me on’ would appear to indicate that the white man was receiving pertinent advice from the ‘other blacks’ as well as Biraban on this particular occasion.
Paul was keenly aware that it is rare to find a colonial reminiscence of an historic moment in time in Newcastle that is so geographically specific: there is only one high cliff named Yirannali ‘near Newcastle on the sea-beach’. And the continuum phenomenon of falling rocks in that locale is well known to modern Novocastrians.
Paul was also aware that if it were not for the relationship between Biraban and Threlkeld the lexicon of local Aboriginal words that we have today would be unlikely to exist.
Biraban shared his language and cultural insights with Threlkeld just as Threlkeld shared his language and cultural insights with Biraban.
Neither culture was perfect. Neither Biraban nor Threlkeld was perfect, but they and other Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people did plant the early hope for a shared future together that was so often overwhelmed by the timeless weeds of greed, violence, disease, misunderstanding, fear, prejudice, cultural arrogance and ignorance.
Is it not time to replant that shared future together?
On advice from Newcastle Herald journalist, Mike Scanlon, Paul shared his Yirannali vision with renowned international Novocastrian artist and sculptor Julie Squires.
Much to Paul’s surprise, Julie arrived at a more modern interpretation of his original vision. Bringing her extensive national experience of indigenous art projects to the fore, Julie suggested a sculptural modification that owed much to Paul’s reconciliation-themed novel Black Feather White Feather from the Centenary of Federation year.
It was as if a literary boomerang had come full circle, and Yirannali: The Quiet Project was slowly but surely moving from dreaming to reality.
Project Philosophy and Aim:
Yirannali: The Quiet Project seeks to quietly inspire unity in community.
This independent co-creative national reconciliation project invites all Australians to replant a shared future together while establishing and maintaining a quiet ‘wild’ community garden on parkland adjacent to Newcastle South Beach and the cliff named Yirannali.
The proposed site for this garden was identified by a Senior Project Planner at Newcastle City Council. The planner immediately recognized that a remote coastal portion of King Edward Park where the parkland meets Yirannali emanates a curious quietness in keeping with the project’s philosophy and aim.
Paul F Walsh OAM and Julie Squires agreed with the planner’s assessment and noted that the site equally honours Threlkeld’s description of where the elicitation of the ‘tradition of the place’ occurred: ‘out of the precincts of the fearful place’.
This quiet ‘wild’ community garden will be dedicated as a quiet place of personal reflection in accord with Biraban’s advice to the Reverend Lancelot Threlkeld. The garden will contain art works celebrating the infinite continuum of reconciliation: past, present and future.
Visitors to the garden will be able to reflect on the painful and joyful aspects of Aboriginal Australians and non-Aboriginal Australians attempting to come together as one people despite an appalling history of cultural collision.
Just as reconciliation is a continuous and expansive process, a limitless journey without maps or discrete destination, so it will be for Yirannali: The Quiet Project as its band of past, present and future gardeners quietly work to replant a shared future together.
At this time of high hopes for both constitutional recognition of Aboriginal people and an eventual treaty, Yirannali: The Quiet Project is a truly unifying and inspiring venture in which the process is as reconciling as the perceived outcome.
The quiet ‘wild’ community garden adjacent to Newcastle South Beach will be a National Reconciliation Reflection Space that inspires all Australians, other cities and overseas visitors alike:
Heart of our nation
Reconciliation
Detail from Bronze Coolamon, Alice Springs project: April Campbell in collaboration with Julie Squires
The Quiet ‘Wild’ Community Garden:
Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians will be invited to form a Yirannali Place Making group under Newcastle City Council auspices to create and nurture the quiet ‘wild’ community garden in perpetuity as part of Newcastle’s continuing contribution to the eternal continuum of national reconciliation.
Indeed, these Place Making gardeners will embody reconciliation in action.
It is envisaged that the Yirannali Place Making group will regenerate itself as the years unfold in accord with Newcastle’s historic spirit of community volunteerism. The group will conduct an initial planting of the quiet ‘wild’ community garden and thereafter conduct an annual planting and nurturing day to be coordinated by Newcastle City Council during NAIDOC week.
Throughout each year, between the annual planting and nurturing days, Newcastle City Council will undertake any necessary upkeep of the garden.
Ground works, plantings and seating placements will enhance quiet reflection in accord with Biraban’s advice to Threlkeld. This work will be undertaken in conjunction with Newcastle City Council’s planning and landscape team.
All planting, both spiritual and physical, will be in accord with the following national call to action, which has been previously uttered by Australian political leaders and Aboriginal leaders:
I plant this tree in the spirit of
the currawong,
black feather white feather
lifting me.
I plant this tree to call upon
all Australians
to replant a
shared future together.
This quotation, which appears in the novel Black Feather White Feather, was written by Paul F Walsh with significant editorial advice from the then Governor General Sir William Deane. It serves to give holistic meaning to the entire project so it will appear within the artworks of the quiet ‘wild’ community garden along with the phrase:
Heart of our nation
Reconciliation
Two six-metre-high bronze feathers, suggestive of the human forms of Biraban and Threlkeld, will be located on the highest point of the garden, one feather to be patinated black and the other feather to be patinated white, with both feathers incorporating inscriptions embracing Threlkeld’s recollection of the historic moment in time, along with key Aboriginal and English words.
It is envisaged that the bronze feathers will be a collaborative artwork undertaken by Julie Squires and an Aboriginal artist.
Bronze reliefs will reflect the past, present and future continuum of reconciliation. They will be co-created by Aboriginal artists working in collaboration with Julie Squires, and this collaboration will allow individual Aboriginal groups to take an active part in the project while reflecting their group’s unique perspectives and dreaming on the process of reconciliation.
Seating in the garden will be in the form of traditional Aboriginal coolamons, caste in bronze or polished aluminium, and decorated via the same collaborative process as the bronze reliefs and the bronze feathers.
Shade structures in the garden will be in the form of traditional Aboriginal shelters, co-designed by Julie Squires and an Aboriginal artist, and built from traditional materials by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal members of the Yirannali Place Making group in conjunction with Newcastle City Council’s planning and landscape team.
A circular boardwalk representing the eternal continuum of reconciliation will enable visitors to experience the quiet ‘wildness’ of the garden while walking quietly together in the spirit of unity in community that the process of reconciliation enables.
For some, this circular walk through real and metaphorical time may be a reaffirmation of their commitment to personal and national reconciliation.
Walking this circular pilgrim boardwalk, which periodically enables a quiet viewing of the bronze reliefs, may also inspire an active recognition of the past informing the present and future of reconciliation.
The quiet ‘wild’ community garden that will merge with the existing quiet ‘wildness’ of the site will feature native ferns and native flowers that could be the original mulubin from which the site of Newcastle derives its Aboriginal name: Mulubinba (or Mulubinbah).
Threlkeld refers to Newcastle as Mulubinba and Mulubinbah in his writings, crediting on separate occasions a fern named mulubin and a flower named mulubin ‘that abounds at the place called Newcastle’ as the inspiration for Mulubinba.
There is a mystery here: was the mulubin a flower or a fern?
We may never know.
But what we do know is that, by planting native trees, shrubs, ferns and flowers adjacent to this ‘sort of sacred place near Newcastle on the sea-beach’, the community of modern Mulubinba will be QUIETLY embracing unity in community and proclaiming:
I plant this tree in the spirit of
the currawong,
black feather white feather
lifting me.
I plant this tree to call upon
all Australians
to replant a
shared future together.
Bronze Coolamons, Alice Springs project: Indigenous Artists MK Turner & April Campbell in collaboration with Julie Squires
Yirannali: The Quiet Project Steering Committee
Susan Harvey is a director of Tusk Productions and a proprietor of Elephant Press. Elephant Press published Novocastrian Tales and Black Feather White Feather. The Novocastrian Tales Project raised the funds to build Yallarwah Place, the Aboriginal Accommodation Centre at John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle. Susan was a member of the Yallarwah Place Building Committee and the producer of the Novocastrian Tales Project and the Currawong Project and the Currawong Exhibition. She is the recipient of an Australian Reconciliation Award, the Premier’s Award for Community Service and the Gold Serif Award for Event Media. In 2000 Susan joined Paul F Walsh in representing Australia at the international millennium celebrations in Chicago. For the past twelve years, Susan has been the Place Making Coordinator of Rosann Park.
Julie Squires is a renowned international Novocastrian artist and sculptor who was the Creative Director for Indigenous Art at the Australian Pavilion for the World Expo in Shanghai and Scenic Team Manager for Production/Installation of the Australian Pavilion at the World Expo in Japan. Julie’s work is held in collections in Australia, Europe, China and the UK. She has extensive experience in collaborating with indigenous artists including The Gathering Garden in Alice Springs and The Tasmanian Devil at the entry to Sydney’s Taronga Zoo. Although Julie is not indigenous, she has Warlpiri and Gumabayngirr family. This family connection has inspired her co-creative work. In 2020, Julie collaborated with Gweagal artist Therese Ardler to create Australia’s 250th Anniversary Commemoration of ‘First Contact’ between Cook and the crew of the Endeavour with the Gweagal Clan of the Dharawal people of Kamay Bay. Julie has undertaken many public art commissions throughout Australia including The Muster Point, Destiny, The Brickworker, Carrington Gateway and Nobby’s Bicentenary Breakwall in and around the Newcastle Harbour precinct. Julie has vast experience in working with Local, State and Federal governments in the public arts sphere, and she has an enviable reputation for successfully managing Project Budgets and Production Timelines. In 2011 Julie was the recipient of the University of Newcastle’s Newton-John Award for Innovation and Creativity.
Gionni Di Gravio OAM is the archivist for the University of Newcastle’s Special Collections based in the Auchmuty Library. He is the Chair of Hunter Living Histories and former councillor of the Australian Society of Archivists. Gionni has appeared on television via Coast Australia with Neil Oliver and served as Executive Producer for the films Biraban and Threlkeld, FINDING THE THIRD SPACE and Lycett and Wallis: Unlikely Preservers of Aboriginal Knowledge. Gionni believes that an understanding of Aboriginal culture is essential to the future survival of life on the Australian continent. Over the past 30 years, Gionni has worked to ensure that extant cultural heritage from the estimated 50,000 years of human expression in the Hunter Region of NSW is safeguarded, respected, documented and made available through new and emergent technologies for ongoing research and education.
Paul F Walsh OAM is Managing Director of Tusk Productions and a proprietor of Elephant Press. He is the creator, editor and co-author of Novocastrian Tales and the author of Black Feather White Feather and the Currawong Exhibition. Paul was a member of the Yallarwah Place Building Committee and the director of the Novocastrian Tales Project, the Currawong Project and the Currawong Exhibition. He is the recipient of the Medal of the Order of Australia, an Australian Reconciliation Award, the Premier’s Award for Community Service, the University of Newcastle’s Newton-John Award for Innovation and Creativity, the Gold Serif Award for Event Media and Citizen of the Year for the City of Newcastle. In 2000 Paul joined Susan Harvey in representing Australia at the international millennium celebrations in Chicago. In 2001 he was a finalist in the Banjo Paterson Writing Awards. Communion, by Paul F Walsh, the tale of a fictional encounter between the child Biraban and the convict artist T. R. Browne was recently published by the Newcastle Herald and Tusk Productions.
Alice Springs project: June Smith and Julie Squires
Copyright Paul F Walsh 2023
For more information about the Yirannali site go to: https://hunterlivinghistories.com/2023/06/29/yirannali/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=yirannali