Seldom Seen

An arts trail in East Gippsland

Jumbi’s Gendook (Brother in laws canoe-Gunnai/Kurnai)

We, the Koori artists from the East Gippsland area with our mentor and artist himself Gary Yellen, are making a canoe, not just any canoe, we have been inspired by our uncles and fathers and grandfathers who made bark canoe’s when they needed to go fishing and hunting on the river banks, the kids could go too. We went and we saw birds and animals we collected bones and feathers and shells we swam in the river and we ate from the river and the sea, eels and fish and perry winkles, mussels and calms, prawns and crays…a life on the water. We lived here some of us at Lakes Entrance …we wanted to pass down the story of the canoe, what it means to us, to our families, our culture…….so we have a canoe in the making we will attach our memories to it ……

The artists involved are-
Lennie Hayes
Frances Harrison
Manfred Ratzman
Dorothy Jack
Lana Gordon
Robbie Farnham