Back to the Dreaming: Cheryl Moggs
Kinship by Cheryl Moggs
Connection: Truth: Identity: Preserve
As my footprints touch ancestral lands I ask myself what does that mean for me. People say you are an Australian First Nation person. That is so, who is my mob, family, country? What is my culture and language? If culture connotations are attached to me, is that it, or is there more? I want more. I am not just a person by cultural name or member of my group the Bigambul people
I am not just a Dreamtime story. I am many things. “AS ONE”.
My exhibition titled Back to the Dreaming gives insight into the Dreaming concept which introduces us into Aboriginal Societies which are: bound by men’s and women’s business, ceremonies, social organisation, language, people, oral traditions, technology, trade routes, waterways: Connected to spirituality, Lore, traditions and ancestors. In Back to the Dreaming, I go out connecting to my people and country, to find the truth, in pursuit of establishing my cultural identity. Preserving it all and telling my story on different platforms.
In this exhibition, my images tell the stories of:
Social Organisation – Kinship
Ceremonies -Totems, knowledge
Waterways -Mother Earth, our country/land
Technology -Medicines, weaving, tools
Trade Routes -Relationships, cultural sharing, natural resources
Oral Traditions -life histories, cultural practices, spiritual narratives, collective histories
People -culture, stories, first nations
Some of the works that are part of this exhibition:
ARTIST STATEMENT
I am a self-taught artist that creates a sense of oneness, taking cues from country, story, heritage, culture, history, and my people.
Challenging western ideologies, mapping country and place, constructing identities and connections.
“Imprinted on amazing surfaces for all to enjoy, learn and connect”
Traditional customs, practices, stories, journeys and historical events of my Aboriginal culture, people, Native Title-and the dynamic and ever-changing Mother Earth-are themes depicted in my artistic practice.
Mixture of warm and cool colours inspired by traditional lands, textural and layered surfaces making reference to levels of cultural practices, heritage and story.
My first artistic experience came from my mother who taught me the significance of symbols through her drawings in the black soil on our country, the making of clay dolls from the claypans where I played as a child. Dolls I carried around in my pocket across country.
Later in my adult life as my children left home I took up painting and became an international success when I won the 2018 National NAIDOC Poster Art award,” Because of Her We Can”. This success followed onto the creation of works for Google, creating a Google Doodle in 2018, celebrating the achievements of Mum Shirl. I continue to have success in the creative industries, in 2020 I will launch my first Heritage Collection of Silk Scarves. First title will be River Dreaming. A story about Australia’s First Nations people connection to water.
I don’t manufacture art, I create for a purpose. It is my way of sharing, teaching, keeping culture and people strong, building a sense of identity and place.
My career and artistic practice is interdisciplinary in painting, photography textiles, design, drawing, and illustration.
I am no stranger to understanding or experiencing the ramifications of cultural and country loss. Coming from a rural region with a history of removal and protection of my people. I am passionate about reclaiming, reconnecting to culture and country through my artistic practice.
BIOGRAPHY
An elder, cultural leader, artist, teacher, & photographer.
I was born to an Irish father and an Aboriginal mother from Goondiwindi region, southwest of Queensland. Seventh of nine children. A descendant of the Bigambul people of Goondiwindi southwest of Queensland. Born and raised on my traditional country. In 2020 I left my country to move to the city to develop my artistic practice. I will continue to visit my country to maintain connection, photograph and gain inspiration for my creative disciplines. As a young child I lived a semi-traditional life in bush camps and as a fringe dweller on the banks of the Toobeah Reserve where I lived in a one room tin hut with no electricity or running water, dirt floors bound by government policies with my parents and siblings.
From an early age my mother, uncle and siblings taught me to follow the seasons to collect and cook bush tucker, make fish and animals traps to catch food, map country, practice traditional knowledge and learn stories. On many occasions, I gathered kangaroo from the traps for food and spent my days in the bush with one of my brothers cutting holes in trees gathering witchy grubs for food. In 2016 as a cultural leader I lead my people to achieve a Native Title Consent Determination of the very lands I grew up as a child.
I was educated in an open-air one-teacher school at Toobeah, South West Queensland, where I lived on the Toobeah Reserve with my parents and siblings. At the age of nine the school closed, with my siblings we went to work in the fields for our father on stations across the west. I never finished primary school nor went onto start senior school. Later in my adult life, I went to University to follow my dream of becoming a teacher. I went onto become an Early Childhood Teacher and complete a Masters in Special Education and ventured into the TAFE and University sectors to teach in the Visual Arts, Culture and Conservation and Land Management disciplines spanning 17 years. In 2020 I have continued to study and at present studying Diploma in Interior Design and on completion will be studying Textile Design to follow my dream of becoming a fashion designer. My first experience as a fashion designer was when I used to dress my clay dolls with grasses and leaves from my country. I set three goals at the age of 13 years whilst laying in a melon hole on my country. To become a teacher, designer and hairdresser. My goals are just about complete as I journey into textiles and Indigenous Fashion.
Major achievements:
2020: Received OAM Order of Australia Medal for service to Indigenous people, country& community.
2019: Finalist in 100 Women of Influence - Qantas
2018: Winner of the National NAIDOC Art Poster Award “Because of Her We Can”
2017: Received the Goondiwindi Rotary Bob Mann Community Service Award
2016: Lead my people to achieve a Native Title Consent Determination
2016: My first solo exhibition, titled” My Country", opening night success