About

“Our work is a spiritual act; a seeking through sensation, memory, emotion, the imagination, through slow gaze, quiet listening, tender touch. Here inspiration is drawn from the place where the inner and outer merge, finding ‘self’ as an interconnected part of the micro and macro. Avoiding objectifying, and more imploring than exploring, our work is a ceremony more than artistic statement.”
— Chris Joy

Murrup Biik is a public art partnership created by Aunty Kim Wandin and Christine Joy. 

​Aunty Kim Wandin is a Wurundjeri Elder of the Woi-Wurrung language group. She has lived and worked 'on Country' in Healesville her entire life. Her traditional basket making has been handed down to her by direct lineage: from her Grandmother, her Great Grandmother and the Ancestors. Aunty Kim's work represents a significant cultural position within the South East of Victoria as part of an important group of arts practitioners. Her work adheres to and references traditional cultural practices.

As a leading Aboriginal artist, Aunty Kim is exploring contemporary genres that both enhance and complement her design work, basketry and fibre pieces. Her work speaks of space, texture and light, while giving reference to notions of movement. As an Elder, she advocates for strengthening culture and self-determination with Aboriginal people.

Chris Joy is an artist/curator who brings concept development, design, coordination, curation and community engagement skills to the project team. As a specialist in community programs and projects Chris' prevailing passion is Aboriginal culture and its role in transforming social and environmental ecologies.

Her work at Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria over a 20 year period, includes the creation of the Ian Potter Foundation Children's Garden. As a member of the design team, Chris spent several years researching the role of plants and nature, upon the sensory, emotional and imaginative inner landscapes. She has lead many design and arts-based projects in galleries, cultural organisations and at community level.

“The essence of Murrup Biik, as an Aboriginal person, is knowing that I come from Country and I am Country and that everything we do affects Country at all levels. It’s about deep listening, to hear what Country is saying to us.”
— Aunty Kim Wandin

What we do

We work with a range of mediums and modalities:

  • installations

  • community art

  • landscaping 

  • curation

  • interiors and exteriors

  • ephemeral and permanent 

  • small and large scale

  • consultation

  • ceremony

  • interpretation and education

  • written narrative and concept development

Values

We value the promotion of healthy collaborative creative practice between Indigenous and non-Indigenous teams, as vital to respectful dialogue and conciliation.

We have valuable insights to share as a partnership, practising within the art and cultural sectors across all levels of government, with private enterprise and with NFP's, including experience with the following dynamics: racial and gendered 'othering' and exoticism, racial and gendered stereotyping, paternalism, reverse discrimination, racial and gendered 'eclipsing', The Matilda Effect in the Arts, the impacts of institutional policy box-ticking (often referred to as 'black-cladding' or 'white-washing'). We see this dialogue as vital to the education toolbox for anyone working with mixed cultural (and mixed gender) artistic partnerships and are happy to share our insights with you.

We understand your curiosity, and respect the challenges you might have to neatly pigeon-hole our projects and partnership, as we that often practice within a cultural framework but we are not totally Indigenous.

We are here to answer your questions and respond to your curiosity. We prefer to establish a mutually respectful working relationship from the get-go, and to avoid any misunderstanding, we may request a discussion and agreement with clients on these topics in preliminary conversations.  

Murrup Biik actively mentors and supports young and emerging artists through their projects. 

Philosophy

Our design work is committed to active philosophy of reciprocal relationship with Country which includes:

  • honouring and acknowledging Ancestors

  • honouring all things Country

  • holistic

  • holarchic rather than hierarchical 

  • Country-centric as a priority rather than human-centric

  • telling the narrative of plants animals waterways, the layers of Country

  • working with the intangible

  • actively healing Country through our work

  • keeping cultural practice alive

  • bringing awareness to community

  • a political statement of Aboriginal survival

  • site-specific sensitivity

  • ​use of language and ceremony