WaterTalks

The exhibition highlights the central role of water in societies, particularly important for First Nations people, emphasising waters’ cultural, spiritual, and economic significance.

WaterTalks presents the Hunter River, known as Coquun to the Traditional Custodians, as a living entity, shedding light on the profound and pervasive impacts of the Anthropocene on water ecosystems. The exhibition highlights the central role of water in societies, particularly important for First Nations people, emphasising waters’ cultural, spiritual, and economic significance.

The Coquun hydrosocial narratives are depicted through a series of artefacts, projections and interactive elements that centre the viewer in colonialist and post-colonialist practices, belonging, ownership, extractivism, dispossession and the biodiversity and climate crisis that shape the River and its memories.