All In, the theme for National Reconciliation Week 2026, is a call for all Australians to commit wholeheartedly to reconciliation every single day. This year, Mental Health and Wellbeing Connect – North East Metro is all in to bring families and carers to “Undercurrent” – an art exhibition about the connections between landscape and country.
“Undercurrent”
As part of our ongoing celebration of Heidelberg School masterpieces – on long-term loan from the National Gallery of Australia as part of Sharing the National Collection – we have invited leading Australian artists to enter into a critical dialogue with this treasured heritage.
Peta Clancy responds to colonial traditions that frame land as landscape, exploring what it might mean to make photographs with Country, grounded in respect and care. For her, Country is not simply an image captured on the thin skin of film in a fraction of a second; it holds memory, knowledge, and powerful histories, that she may choose whether or not to reveal. Her photographic series Undercurrent was developed in collaboration with Dja Dja Wurrung Traditional Owners and Country during a residency with the Koorie Heritage Trust.
The project began with the Victorian Aboriginal Massacre Map compiled for the Heritage Trust’s publication KOORIE in 1991, which documents 68 known killings of First Peoples by European settlers between 1835 and 1853 – a small fraction of the violence that occurred. Through collaboration with traditional owners, she developed a relationship with a specific place.
Clancy’s practice responds to colonial representations of landscape by working with Country rather than treating it as subject matter. Country holds culture, memory and story that cannot simply be captured in an image. It must be approached with care and reciprocity. The photographs emerge from an encounter with Country, as traces of an ongoing collaboration with Country.
For more information: Undercurrent | Banyule Council
Any questions, please contact:
Phone: 8850 4136
Email: chuck.cheng@accesshc.org.au
