Narrbong, from the installation Narrbong-galang (many bags)

Working with rusted, salvaged metals, Waradgerie (Wiradjuri) artist Lorraine Connelly-Northey has created a collection of narrbong-galang (many bags) on an epic scale. These significant forms, which recontextualise rural materials, reveal an important cultural practice of south-east Australia. They fill the wall of the 20-metre-long loggia of the Yiribana Gallery that showcases Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art on the Art Gallery’s new building’s entrance level.

Connelly-Northey was born and raised on the adjoining cultural boundaries of the Wamba Wamba and Wadi Wadi peoples, known today as the township of Swan Hill in the north-west of Victoria.

For most of her life, she has been taking in the Aboriginal history of these boundaries under the guidance of her non-Aboriginal dad and later by her brother-in-law, a Wadi Wadi descendant. While over the last decade she has been living away from home on her mother’s land of connection, Waradgerie (Wiradjuri) country, Connelly-Northey continues to expand her cultural knowledge to gain inspiration for her art practice.

Connelly-Northey’s inspiration from traditional knowledge of countries of Aboriginal Australia allows her to create boundless, rustic metal sculptural representations of traditional Aboriginal–Australian bush bags/fibre bags.