#Aroha Groves

[assemblepapers-blog]

Making a significant cultural contribution to RMIT University’s Melbourne campus, Ngarara Place provides a “visible presence and recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, cultures and histories as connected among the lands of the Kulin Nation”. Designed by Greenaway Architects, its arrangement rests upon four distinct principals, each referencing the university’s important direct and indirect connections to Indigenous culture. 

Located at a key intersection of the university, Greenaway Architects' first principal for Ngarara Place was ensuring the link between Indigenous culture and ‘connection to country’. This is achieved through establishing a clear connection between the site’s seven distinct sections and the Kulin people’s recognition of seven seasons. While each section serves a different function, like space for dance, ceremonial activities and tiered planting, Ngarara Place’s centrepiece is a sculptural smoke pit.

The inclusion of local Indigenous art and tradition is seen through cultural motifs and contemporary Indigenous art. Many of the site’s motifs reflect nation groups from the Australia’s southeast (as seen in the pavement design and carving by Indigenous landscape designer Charles Solomon), while Weilwan/Gomeroi artist Aroha Groves produced the large vertical glazed facade. Finally, Ngarara Place serves as a knowledge exchange with several endemic and Indigenous species of plants and educational signs giving context to the history and ritual conceived throughout the site’s design.

As described by Greenaway Architects: “The landscape reinforces and reveals layers of history and meaning through an active gesture of reconciliation, while infusing Indigenous sensibilities within the heart of the City of Melbourne and begins to broader the frame of reference in which people can connect to place.” 

Photographs by Moorina Bonini and Peter Casamanto, via Greenaway Architects. 

[denisethwaites]

Sample of work to be included in forthcoming exhibition, Singular/Plural, presented as part of the New Beginnings Refugee Arts and Culture Festival (21 June - 4 July).

Images (clockwise from top left): 

Aroha Groves, Day at Wreck Bay (2006), HD Video (still)

Sameer Dakhil, Dining Set (2017), Engraved brass, dimensions variable, photograph: Jessica Maurer

Elham Behinaein Hamgini, Apartment Block in Kayseri (2016), Digital inkjet print, 42 x 60cm

Lindy Lee, Flame from the Dragon's Pearl: Open as the Sky (2013), bronze, 36 x 42 x 30 cm, edition of 3 + 2AP, Courtesy of the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf, Photograph: Carl Warner

Alex Seton, Oilstone 04_Saturated (2017), Bianco carrara marble, engine oil, glass, 47 x 24 x 98 cm, Courtesy the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf Sydney & Singapore, Photograph: Mark Pokorny

Curated by Denise Thwaites