Healing
Land,
Remembering
Country

is a new gesture of ‘memory exchange’. Presented as a sustainable greenhouse at Cockatoo Island, the work poses important questions such as: how do we remember, give justice to, and rewrite complex and traumatic histories? The greenhouse acts as a site for reflection, writing and giving. It is filled with an immersive installation of hanging baskets, displaying the weaving and basket making

practices of Indigenous artists and communities from around Australia, that act as the holding places for people’s letters and memories. Many community baskets are based on the shape of other carrying vessels and are objects with multiple purposes and meanings: as cradles, to hold food and for use in ceremonies. These are artworks that intimately care for what is placed in them. Visitors, including families and children, are invited to use the house as a space for reflection and conversation, and to create messages in the form of ‘gifted memories’ on handmade paper imbedded with native seeds to place in the baskets. The greenhouse is also a place for planting; to step into warmth, light and mist; to witness the growth of plants native to New South Wales; and to experience a healing atmosphere. Visitors are able to plant and pot their seed letters, placed on a tiered structure to show the growth of the plants. The greenhouse is open to the diverse international and local visitors of the Biennale, and Albert has worked closely with the Public Programs and Learning team to engage communities, and to build specific programs of ‘memory exchange.’ The project also acts as an opportunity to rejuvenate the land through vegetation (which, after the project, will be planted in locations selected in close collaboration with communities) and to heal it through collective memories.