... because we humans can only work for
a future we can imagine.
ITF'S VIRTUAL POSSUM SKIN CLOAK 1996/97
Virtual possum skin cloak composed for Imagine
The Future Inc by Csaba Szamosy from around 200 images contributed
by project partners. Based on
a concept developed by Merrill Findlay and the
project team in consultation with elders of the Kulin nation and
residents of the bioregion.
[The 2002
version, and accompanying story, Digital
possum skin cloak.]
Painting the Future Real
About the project
About the Bioregion
Imagine The Future Inc .
Drawing
of one of the few intact possum skin cloaks to have survived the processes
of colonisation. This one is from the Echuca district and is now conserved
in Museum Victoria. The drawing is reproduced with permission.
For thousands of years indigenous people in south-eastern Australia wrapped themselves in garments they manufactured from the skins of marsupials. The skins were incised with traditional clan designs, coloured with ochres and charcoal, and stitched together with animal sinew or thread made from plant fibres.
Project
director Merrill Findlay's rough 'map' used by artist Csaba Szamosy to
compose the virtual cloak from images contributed by project partners.
ITF's re-interpreted possum skin cloak is digitally 'incised' with composite images about the past, present and sustainable futures of Victoria's basalt plain. Creation of the virtual possum skin cloak was supervised by elders of the Wurundjeri clans of the Kulin nation. Imagine The Future gratefully acknowledges their support and patience, and the support of curatorial staff of the Museum of Victoria in this endeavour.
No real Kulin cloaks remain from pre-invasion days and the old designs have been lost under the profound pressures of colonisation. But contemporary Kulins continue to manufacture marsupial skin cloaks as an expression of their cultural survival.
[Page history: created and first published on www.ecoversity.org.au as part of Painting the future real (1995-97), the prototype for Redreaming the plain (1998-2002); taken off-line in 1998 and re-posted in a slightly revised form in July 2004 as a web archive. For more information contact redreaming@rmit.edu.au.]