Exhibition Insight... Aunty Ellen Trevorrow & Robert Wuldi Curatorial Speech
Carly Tarkari Dodd’s curatorial speech celebrates Aunty Ellen Trevorrow and Robert Wuldi’s artistic legacy, recognising their powerful contributionto the preservation and continuation of Ngarrindjeri cultural practices.
Curator Carly Tarkari Dodd with Aunty Ellen Trevorrow, Photo: Connor Patterson
Curatorial Speech by Carly Tarkari Dodd
My name is Carly Dodd, I am a Kaurna, Narungga, and Ngarrindjeri artist and curator. Firstly, congratulations to Robert and Aunty Ellen on these incredible shows. It's so amazing to see such strong Ngarrindjeri weavers represented here at JamFactory.
As Brian mentioned, I currently work down the road at the Art Gallery of South Australia as Assistant Curator of Tarnanthi, and about 3ish months ago I was here at JamFactory as First Nations Assistant Curator.
I have the absolute privilege and honour to say I was taught weaving by Aunty Ellen when I was younger and am also the curator of this exhibition.
I first heard talks about Aunty Ellen being an ICON about 4 years ago, and I was beyond excited. I also thought, well, JamFactory is a bit late here… Aunty Ellen has been a Ngarrindjeri ICON for decades. Better late than never I guess.
I just wanted to say a few words about what these exhibitions represent.
These shows represent so much to me as a Ngarrindjeri mimini and weaver.
We all know some of the horrible history's of this so-called 'Australia'. For communities everywhere the missions took away so much. Language, land, people, rights and cultural practices. Practicing any form of culture on the mission was extremely challenging. Down south east the teaching and sharing of weaving was heavily disrupted or even removed completely from many families. For my family the flow of learning culture was disrupted. Weaving over the generations was sometimes spoken about but never shown.
It wasn't until my family went down to Camp Coorong around 2008 where it was just waiting to come out, and it did. We were taught weaving by Aunty Ellen. The weaving was always in us. Little did anyone realise that my entire career as an artist and curator grew from that one workshop 17 years ago. Thank you Aunty Ellen.
The generosity and knowledge that Aunty Ellen has given my family is so invaluable. Corni's as well.
For us Ngarrindjeri it's not just the mimini's that are great weavers but the the men are often left out of the conversation as it's heavily dominated by women and stereotyped as a woman's practice.
It's so great to have Robert's show here sharing stories with us. Each stitch in Robert's work echoes to his great grandfather Milerum also known as Clarence Long. It's a stitch that's lives through generations.
When I see Robert's work I can't help but think of some of the men in my family, especially my pop and great grandfather, both named Seth, as weaving wasn't always around for them growing up on the mission. My pop was born on the Raukkan mission and growing up people would be punished for speaking language and attempting other forms of culture.
My pop didn't see eye to eye with the superintendent so he "signed away" his Aboriginality to leave the mission to get a job. Living away from country added another barrier to practicing culture. But he would always talk about the tall reeds when travelling back to Raukkan across the punt.
It's now been 10 years since my pop passed, and I often think if he were here what he would think of his culture being shared and celebrated like it is today.
Flash forward to now and I'm teaching the family weaving. Earlier in the year I taught my youngest niece Harper, who was 4 at the time, how to make a little basket and her aunties, cousins and parents joined in as well. Seeing them learn this practice for the first time reminded me of my first workshop and how important teaching weaving is.
The opportunities that we get today, we deserve them, we fought for them.
We fought to be here. We need to take these opportunities, because they weren't available or even an option for our old people.
I also want to acknowledge the many elders who have fought so tirelessly their whole lives fighting for land rights, water rights and human rights. All of these things affect us, it affects our weaving. Fighting for these rights and educating all people about them are vital. Land, water and human rights go hand in hand with keeping weaving alive.
It keeps us alive.
Tonight, we are honouring the strength, determination and resilience of our old people. I thank them for instilling in us the importance of knowing who we are and where we coming from.
Without that we wouldn't be here.
We wouldn't be here celebrating this Ngarrindjeri excellence!
Thank you.
JamFactory ICON 2025 Aunty Ellen Trevorrow: Weaving Through Time is showing at JamFactory Adelaide until 14 September 2025 and JamFactory at Seppeltsfield from
4 October 2025 - 7 December 2025 followed by a national tour.
Robert Wuldi: Weaving the Machine is showing at JamFactory Adelaide until 14 September 2025.