Wangee Maaje – Basket Weaving Workshops
Shandell Cummings. Photography by Jenny Feast
Wangee Maaje was a product of me undertaking my planning to move forward with my PhD aspirations. While thinking about my PhD and the topic – Recording and mapping cultural fishing practices on the south coast of WA – I started to think about how I could implement an art component within my research and ensure there was a process for participatory action research (PAR).
We have now successfully delivered 2 of our weaving sessions, with the first session planned as a field trip to Two Peoples Bay, which is a landscape that holds a high cultural significance for Aboriginal women. The aim of being on Country was to immerse ourselves in the conversations about cultural fishing practices and plant use for things like basket making, and this location made sense for it to be here.
On the morning I packed my vehicle with containers of ‘making stuff’ and I felt a few little drops of rain and my first thought was that Kinjarling (meaning ‘place of rain’) may try and live up to its name today. Luckily that wasn’t the case. The day was divine, and ended up with a few participants enjoying an ocean dip after the session.
Photography by Jenny Feast
We arrived at Two Peoples Bay and started setting up while people were arriving and introducing themselves to us and each other. We had a small group of about nine ladies that were keen to learn more about the project and some of the unique nuances of Menang culture and language. We started the session with me giving everyone the information of my research topics and some background into why we are doing the weaving workshops, with the reiteration that we are not weavers as a normal artform, but we definitely know lots about local culture and we are happy to share information and answer questions people may have.
We then got welcomed to Country by local Elder Lynette Knapp (who also happens to be my Mum 😉). With the initial introductions out of the way we all then moved into starting a weaving piece, and the conversations and questions continued well into the day. The day also consisted of a phenomenal BBQ lunch prepared by the wonderful Jessikah at Awesome Aboriginal, which added to the connections over the day and we continued with sharing and creating.
The next session was delivered at the Co-Op Building at the Museum of the Great Southern where we welcomed a few more newcomers with a total of about eleven ladies, and one lovely gentleman who taught a few of us about crochet and knitting world records. This session saw some creators building on the piece they started last week with several others starting new pieces. Again, it was another wonderful day and great support from the Museum staff in Albany.
Next week, we plan on setting up some of the creators to work on some dilly bags. Watch this space, or better yet come join in!
Shandell’s workshops are FREE and open to all, running until January 2025. Find out more here
For bookings and questions, please contact Shandell at awesomeaboriginal@hotmail.com