Lost Lands Found
Presented by Dean Stewart in partnership with Hobsons Bay City Council
"Reconciliation is not just between black and white, but it is a reconciliation of us all, as a people back with the land, for we are all the newest custodians and caretakers of this ancient land which we now all call - Our Home!"
Dean Stewart - Wemba Wemba Wergaia
Seabrook Skeleton Creek Waterway Awareness Public Art Project
Located where the Skeleton Creek trail meets the underpass at Point Cook Rd Seabrook, this mural by artist Rich Keville depicts themes of biodiversity and conservation informed by the Indigenous heritage of the local area.
Working with students from Seabrook Primary School on text and visual ideas, and with input from Council’s conservation team along with Dean Stewart (Wemba Wemba Wergaia), Rich Keville has created an artwork that adds creativity to the city, while generating conversation on the importance of conserving environment, habitat and culture.
Find out more
About Lost Lands Found
Lost Lands Found is a high density development and ecological art project established in Logan Reserve, Altona, adjacent to the Altona Homestead.
This urban development is not highlighting our people, but our ecological neighbours – Altona’s local Indigenous wildflowers, grasses, herbs and lilies.
Explore Lost Lands Found with the Lost Lands Found Species list.
The concept of the space is to create a small ‘enhanced’ local Flowering Grasslands micro-habitat – a secret wild ecological space, a local landscape and place as if suspended in time, suspended in place: a ‘Lost Lands Found’.
This short film documents the Lost Lands Found project and unveils its narrative of our native landscape and the process of nurturing and honouring our lands Indigenous heritage.
Not that long ago, in the ‘Once As It Was’, Victoria and the west’s rich and biodiverse Flowering Grasslands were the largest Volcanic Plains ecosystem on earth. Stretching westwards, from what is now Melbourne, it remained almost unbroken for hundreds of kilometres into South Australia. However within only four generations of European settlement these once vast and radiant ecosystems are now devastated with less than 1% of our uniquely Victorian Flowering Grasslands ecosystems remaining intact. Our Victorian Flowering Grasslands ecosystem expanses have gone from one of the richest, to one of our entire nation’s most critically threatened.
This ecological art project hopes to inspire individual action to reverse these local environmental upheavals, as well as getting the community to reflect on this space and consider not only the ecological damage but more significantly the opportunities.
Lost Lands Found hopes to inspire the community to make deep personal connections with their local landscape, to re-acquaint themselves with the local environment, be a part of the complexity, the immense intricate beauty, and the ecological richness of what is right under our feet in our own backyard.
For more information on Lost Lands Found please follow the project @LostLandsFound or contact arts@hobsonsbay.vic.gov.au.
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