Kialthra Ban Park, 2019

Hartley Briggs, Member of the Goulburn River Clans, Kialthra Ban Park, 2019. Poster, On loan from Min-Jaara Cultural Association.

The significance of three parks located on the Lower Goulburn River is explained in this series of posters by Hartley Briggs. The work was informed by a fellowship he undertook at the Library during which he combined research of the Koori collections with his own cultural knowledge and that of his elders and ancestors.

Briggs researched the importance of the waterways to the culture and economies of Indigenous Victorian Aboriginal people. The locations that feature on the posters were gathering places that provided hunting grounds and points of trade. The visual symbols represent oral traditions and landscapes that identify the parks, and these can be decoded by the surrounding written narratives.

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Sorry business

This is to acknowledge the passing of this artist and to show our respect for the contribution of his cultural knowledge to this project.

Sorry business

This is to acknowledge the passing of an artist whose work is displayed on this page, and to show our respect for the contribution of their cultural knowledge to this project.

Australian Aboriginal bush medicine, 2019

Hartley Briggs, Member of the Goulburn River Clans Australian. Aboriginal bush medicine made from Old Man Weed, 2019. On loan from Min-Jaara Cultural Association.

Hartley Briggs, a member of the Goulburn River Clans, applied the cultural knowledge and skills of his ancestors to make this health tonic from a local river plant known as Gerk Wurrung Dorook or ‘Old Man Weed’.

The bottle’s label, designed by Briggs, explains the tonic’s many health benefits, from reducing fatigue and trauma to healing wounds and relieving headaches. When something in nature is given a name that characterises it as an old person, it shows that it is greatly revered.

Briggs was the inaugural recipient of the Indigenous Victorian Aboriginal Cultural Research Fellowship at the Library.

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Sorry business

This is to acknowledge the passing of this artist and to show our respect for the contribution of his cultural knowledge to this project.

Water cask from a European settlement at Sullivan Bay, Sorrento, 1803

Water cask from a European settlement at Sullivan Bay, Sorrento, 1803. State Library Victoria Pictures Collection.

In pursuit of fresh water, Victoria’s first European settlers had little choice but to get crafty with this barrel.

They fashioned a filter system using sand, grass and sticks inside the wall of the cask to try and purify seawater – the only resource available to them at Sullivan Bay, where they had landed. The contraption failed and soon after the site was abandoned.

The break-up of the drought – a welcome shower, 1882

Samuel Calvert, ‘The break-up of the drought – a welcome shower’. Engraving published in the Illustrated Australian News, 13 May 1882. State Library Victoria Pictures Collection.

The man who stands in reverence at a welcome shower in the news illustration evokes a sentiment first expressed in the late 1800s: ‘Don’t pray for rain, dam it!’

The slogan became associated with Bishop of Melbourne James Moorhouse, notorious for instructing people to stop their pleas for rain and to conserve it. His views sparked a heated theological debate yet helped shift attitudes towards drought relief, encouraging preventative action rather than short-term aid.

Recycling Water, 2008

Julie Millowick, Recycling Water, 2008 (detail). 1 of 10 digital prints, State Library Victoria Pictures Collection.

The white plastic basin depicted in this photo helped one Victorian resident save water during the millennium drought, when low rainfall placed extreme pressure on water supply in much of southern Australia.

Citizens were called upon to make every drop count during enforced government restrictions. The simple container allowed its owner to devise a smart way of washing themselves at the same time as their clothes.

The image is from a wider photographic project that documented the widespread effects of drought on communities, industries and the environment.

Aqua: official journal of the state rivers and water supply commission Victoria, 1958

Aqua: Official Journal of the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission Victoria. Issues: February 1963, April 1960, November 1962.

A local invention called the ‘Detheridge wheel’ is among the apparatus putting water to work in the journal pictures. It was born of a need to manage water supply in a sustainable manner due to a rapid expansion of land irrigation.

This wheel measures the flow diverted to individual farms from the main water channels. Cheap, robust and simple to use, it gained popularity in Australia and other countries, only recently superseded by electronic meters.

School Strike 4 Climate protestor at the Melbourne rally, 2019

School Strike 4 Climate, protestor at the Melbourne rally, 15 March 2019. Digital photograph courtesy of Beth Johnson.

Flooding rains, rising sea levels and coastal erosion are all reminders of water’s impact on the land and its inhabitants.

More than ever before, people are calling on governments and fellow citizens to act now and recognise fluctuating weather systems as human-caused climate change.

This photograph was taken at the School Strike 4 Climate rally in Melbourne in March 2019, when tens of thousands of young Australians walked out of their classrooms to stage protests in capital cities.

Aqua: official journal of the state rivers and water supply commission Victoria, 1963

Aqua: Official Journal of the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission Victoria. Issues: February 1963, April 1960, November 1962.

Aqua: official journal of the state rivers and water supply commission Victoria, 1962

Aqua: Official Journal of the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission Victoria. Issues: February 1963, April 1960, November 1962.