By JESSE GRAHAM
A BOOK introducing the Yarra Valley through pre-European invasion Wurunderji eyes is being launched this weekend at TarraWarra Museum of Art (TWMA).
Coinciding with the recent opening of the Future Memorials exhibition, Mick Woiod (known as Murrup Ngulu) will be launching his book Paradise Lost: On and Around the Great Moorool at the museum on Sunday 17 November.
The book will be launched with Wurundjeri Elder Aunty Joy Wandin Murphy after artist Tom Nicholson discusses his installation Towards a Monument to Batman’s Treaty 2008-2013 as part of the exhibition.
The book discusses the Great Moorool, which is a 20-kilometre long lake that lay five kilometres long in the floodplains of the Upper Yarra.
According to Mr Woiod, if the centuries-old lake had remained in the area, towns such as Healesville, Yarra Glen, Lilydale and Woori Yallock would be dotted around its shoreline.
The book is written from an indigenous point-of-view, focusing on the Dreamtime story told to the European settlers by Old Bilibellar, one of the clan-heads of the Wurundjeri.
As part of the Dreamtime story, the Wurundjeri had been unhappy because their hunting grounds were covered in water and Mo-Yarra had stepped forward to cut a channel from the floodplains to Melbourne – the water diverted from the floodplains is said to have reached the area now known as Port Phillip Bay.
Mr Woiod said the story falls in alignment with geologist’s view that there had formerly been a lake on the Upper Yarra floodplains and that Port Phillip Bay had once been dry land.
Paradise Lost: On and Around the Great Moorool will be launched from 4-5pm on Sunday 17 November at TarraWarra Museum of Art at 311 Healesville-Yarra Glen Road.
For more information, visit www.twma.com.au or call 5957 3100.
