Written by Freja Carmichael, Guest Author and First Nations Curator, 2022
As a Ngugi women from the Quandamooka people, my engagement with First Nations cultural material in the Queensland Museum collection has enabled connections with stories, people, Country and place. This began for me during an internship with Queensland Museum in 2010, where I had to access to the collection for first time. This was a significance experience in understanding further the collection’s cultural significance. I was in the presence of deep histories from across Country and place and was introduced to cultural material from near and afar.
In this collection, I especially connected with the stories to Quandamooka Country in fibre works that included woven looped and knotted flat bags. Previously, I had seen imagery in books and read descriptions in archives of the beautiful old bags woven on Country and neighbouring nations; the bags that were skilfully made and important to cultural and daily life, community and for exchange. In the space of meeting and seeing cultural material, I could hold the past in my hands, breathe in the scents of Country in the woven wetland reeds and immerse in the intricate techniques of past generations.