The Bunya and the Bunya Infinity Forest
The stories of Bunya - as I know them- are richly layered and nuanced.
The scientific narrative of deep time places the Auracarias (Bunya is a member of this family - known to science as Auracaria bidwilli) in the beginnings of the evolution of conifers, well before the emergence of flowering plants, back before the breakup up of the supercontinent of Pangea. Moving forward in deep time the Auarcarias dominated Gondwanic forests, and the family’s current distribution in South America, the pacific and Australasia reflects that.
Much of the dirty coal that Australia uses and exports is the remnants of Auracarian forests.
The recent historic distribution of Bunyas is in South East Queensland - from the areas around the Stanley River, the Blackall Ranges and the Mary River to about Gympie and westward to the Bunya Mountains, with a small outlier in North Queensland. Bunyas grow both in groves, and as rainforest emergents.
The First Nations peoples of this region held and hold deep relationships with Bunya (Bonyi, Bonyee, Bonye). I am fortunate to have learnt a little of the significance of these beings through personal relationships with knowledge holders, especially Kabi Kabi woman Aunty Beverley Hand and her family, as well as careful reading of colonial accounts and historical and anthropological texts. Local knowledge places Bunya pine and Hoop pine as brothers, the same relationship as that given by taxonomic science.
Kabi Kabi, Jinaburra, and Wakka Wakka Peoples are the recognised Native Title Holders of the Bunya lands, although the influence/importance of Bunya extends well beyond those groups. Historically neighbouring groups were invited to share in the seasonal abundance of nuts - resulting in a significant movement of people to and from the bunya lands, to coincide with what European knowledge systems would call “mast seasons”, and from even further afield some cases. These gatherings were important occasions of cultural and economic sharing and exchange and governance.
Following the European invasion and occupation of this region, a quite unique and remarkable thing happened - Governor Gipps (governor of what is now NSW VIC and QLD) issued what has come to be known as the Bunya Proclamation in April 1842;
“It having been represented to the GOVERNOR that a District exists to the Northward of Moreton Bay, in which a fruit-bearing Tree abounds, called Bunya, or Banya Bunya, and that the Aborigines from considerable distances resort at certain times of the year to this District for the purpose of eating the fruit of the said Tree:—His Excellency is pleased to direct that no Licenses be granted for the occupation of any lands within the said District in which the Bunya or Banya Bunya Tree is found. And notice is hereby given, that the several Crown Commissioners in the New England and Moreton Bay Districts have been instructed to remove any person who may be in the unauthorised occupation of Land whereon the said Bunya or Banya Bunya Trees are to be found. His Excellency has also directed that no Licenses to cut Timber be granted within the said districts”
Bunyas and People
This was a de facto protection of both lands and culture - for a brief moment in colonial time. One of the first acts of the new QLD parliament was to repeal this act in 1860, opening the lands to “selection”, the forests to exploitation for timber, and the People to “dispersal.” By the early 1900’s the Bunya forests had been largely destroyed, and most remaining Traditional Custodians were forcibly removed, outlaws or in hiding.
Today remnant populations of Bunya exist, but many of the existing Bunya trees are the result of deliberate planting - by Indigenous Peoples returning from the historic Bunya gatherings, by early horticulturalists/landscape gardeners following Bidwill’s distribution of the tree to botanic gardens nationally and internationally, by forestry operations from the 1930’s onward, and more recently by native plant growers and land managers with interests in traditional practices and regeneration of landscapes.
And always through it all, the bunya themselves - those giant, prickly, ancient, generous beings - if you don’t believe me - hug one, hold your face tenderly against the prickly bark and feel the steady pulse of old life and knowing, and don’t be too surprised if it speaks with/in/to you.
This living being of deep time, and cultural and historical importance, was what I was asked to represent in the new environmental history gallery of the National Museum of Australia.
I naively hoped we would tell a rich and generous story, of deep time, of ancient culture, of continuing care of country, of the terrible consequences of colonisation, and of the continuity and generosity of both culture and of the biotic and human communities that surround these extraordinary beings. I have been deeply hurt and disappointed by both the process and outcomes of the project, and I know that many other people have similarly been hurt and disappointed.
From Concept to Construction
Discussions around representing Bunya in the new gallery of the Museum began with George Main and Jilda Andrews from the NMA myself and my then partner in 2017, with the idea that Bunya might be one of a group of species exemplifying a narrative of environmental history and human relationship. We introduced George and Jilda to a range of people working with Bunya, and I took them to the forests, and talked about other creatives who would be good to work with on an as yet unspecified bunya project.
In early 2018 Bianca Beetson, Leah Barclay and myself were invited by the NMA to work on a “collaboration that delivers a large, artful installation capturing the form, aesthetic, spirit and meanings of the tree…” We collectively grappled with how to take the living, culturally significant materiality of bunya into the context of a museum.
In 2019 I met with members of New York based Local Projects who were engaged by the museum to design the new galleries, introducing them to a soundscape/object hybrid that had informed our discussions, and I began discussions with the museum about the idea of casting bunya as a means of representing the trees.
Late 2019 I was approached by the Katalyst Group to construct trees for the new gallery in the NMA and I signed a purchase order to build the trees, with the confidence that I was ultimately dealing with people I trusted. It later became obvious that the fee I had been offered was very inadequate for the scale, complexity, and longevity of the project, and the people I trusted were being removed from any control.
I was horrified by the lack of artistic autonomy and respect for skills and experience and absence of cultural sensitivity that was inherent in the process that followed. There was a very, very lengthy and painful process of design, debate, redesign, engineering and documentation to finally reach sign-off on construction drawings in February 2021.
This process involved negotiating with members of the NMA team, Local Projects, Katalyst Group and Built (construction group). Throughout this process I felt that I (and Leah and Bianca) were treated as general fabricators, rather than artists and designers. Bianca’s role as a traditional owner and knowledge holder was ignored, and Leah was sidelined. I continually had to fight for the inclusion and maintenance of any cultural content in the work. It was exhausting and I did not understand and could not believe the process was so culturally uninformed when I was working with a national cultural institution.
The final approved design was for 4 approximately 7.5metre trees with a plywood skeleton, reinforced with steel rod, and covered with a skin of plywood and urethane cast bark, with a curved panel of Bunya timber on 3 of the trunks, which was to display Indigenous artwork about Bunya Culture in a process lead by Bianca Beetson, and that would project a bunya soundscape designed by Leah Barclay through embedded transducers.
These trees were to form a “bunya infinity forest” in the sloping entrance hallway to the new gallery with mirrors replicating the tree forms to infinity in a scheme proposed by Local Projects.
Building an Infinity Forest
Meantime I had been developing techniques to work with the trees. Sawmiller’s Dave and Sam Kirby (who mill plantation bunya logs for Maton guitars) gifted the project Bunya bark to experiment with, and Jim Martin and I visited the sawmill and peeled the bark.
John Van der Kolk and I experimented with these bark segments to find suitable mould making and casting techniques to work with the Bunya Bark, and subsequently I used these to find suitable pigments, dyes and paints to achieve desired outcomes.
In August 2020 my partner Karla Pringle and I travelled to Jimna to experiment with wrapping the whole diameter of a tree with silicone to be able to cast segments of tree bark that would tile vertically to give the impression of a whole tree.
Once I had perfected the casting process I worked with Kabi Kabi elder Aunty Beverley Hand and members of her family and community (including Daniel Hand, David Peters and Daniel Easton) to take a large silicone mould from another Bunya near Jimna in ceremony. This mould became the master for all of the bark of the sculptural bunya trees. I was quite shocked later in the project when I realised that a senior museum curator hadn’t even grasped this level of community engagement in the process.
I worked with Pavel Perina to develop parametric versions of the engineered drawings suitable for CNC fabrication of internal components, and then cnc cut the internal tree skeleton components with Borys Danilcenko.
Max Baker-Finch and Jim Martin helped assemble the 56 individual cradles that would form the trees, and we vacuum laminated and then fixed the 56 plywood inner skins to the cradles, with the additional help of Guille Yllera and Daniel Zilo and Kevin McMahon. We then flush-trimmed all of the inner skins to length and shape.
56 individual bark segments were cast from the blanket mould made in Jimna, using pigmented casting urethane for each.
Each cast was pulled from the mould while green, and laid on the corresponding tree segment to ensure it hardened to the correct diameter and taper. Jim Martin, Max Baker Finch, Kevin Mcmahon, Katerina Annels, Anika Annels and Allen Phillips all worked with Ross on the casting.
The dried cast skin segments were then glued to their appropriate node, and then flush trimmed to shape by Ross and Jim. The cradles were then joined horizontally and vertically with bolts and tenons to create portions of trunk. These were then blended together with polyurethane sealant that was imprinted with a small bark mould.
The resulting “tree” trunk portions were then painted and blended and shellacked by Ross and Jim Martin.
Bianca Beetson facilitated workshops with artists from Bunya custodial groups (Kabi Kabi, Wakka Wakka, and Jinaburra) and Bianca, Melinda Serico, BJ Murphy, Jason Murphy, Adrian Bauwens and Aunty Hazel Cowburn developed a series of interrelated but seperate designs to tell the Bunya story from three different perspectives. This was a major gathering and representation of traditional and contemporary knowledge requiring significant cultural capital to achieve. These designs were to be pyrographically etched onto Bunya timber on the tree sculptures.
Solid bunya timber was coopered to form tapering curved panels to fit onto the trees and fitted with help from Kevin Macmahon, Jim Martin and Darryl Cook. Coopering on such a scale is not usually done - I used an international group of highly skilled woodworkers to help formulate the approach I used. The completed tree components were stored awaiting the pyrographic work by the Indigenous artists. This cultural work was cancelled by the NMA with a few days notice and no explanation.
The trees were transported to Canberra. Jim Martin and Ross spent 3 very difficult and frustrating weeks installing the sculptures. Jim Martin worked at heights and in very difficult conditions and for much longer than was expected without payment - I can’t thank him enough for his commitment to seeing this project to completion.
The outcomes of the project
The trees have attracted much favourable attention in press and from visitors. But they are much, much less than they were intended to be. The Indigenous content was drastically reduced and the soundscape not completed. They could have been so much more.
In retrospect, the whole process feels exploitative and colonialist. The museum used 3rd parties to remove responsibility for their practices, the contractual arrangements of large building firms are crafted to place power in the hands of the firm and to exploit subcontractors. Again and again, through the process, costs were passed to me, being asked to pay for professional services that should have been provided by a lead contractor. Instead of being a process that was supposed to take a few months it stretched over years, leaving me with little or no capacity to take on other work. There was no understanding of the research and development nature of such a sculptural process, or of the range of understandings, skills and sensitivities that were being bought to the task. A direct arts contract with the NMA would have been much more appropriate.
The artists operated on the goodwill and trust that had been generated by George Main and Jilda Andrews, without knowing they had been removed from any control over the project’s direction or outcomes.
The project budget was inadequate to cover material costs and required professional costs, let alone provide for appropriate payment for any of the artists, family and community members who devoted time and skills because they believed in the project. Much goodwill and cultural capital has been exhausted, and relationships with Indigenous community have been damaged. The museum has a suboptimal sculptural outcome through the very poor handling of culturally sensitive processes.
The artists, their closest friends and family, and the bunya community have subsidised a national cultural institution and corporate builders and designers. It is exploitive. My studio has provided over $230 000 of unpaid labour - that’s 4 times more than the total amount received for the work - which covered costs and the services of other professionals, but left nothing for my studio.
Throughout the whole messy and painful process my partner Karla Pringle was my constant, always there, she held me financially through this whole process and kept me emotionally intact through my utmost despair. I used all of my financial resources to complete this project to the point of near bankruptcy, and I am selling my studio and relocating to attempt financial recovery.
I wonder if the NMA will give us a spot on the Sponsorship Board?
