Jenna Lee- 'Danala (Dillybag)' Necklace in Red, 2023

‘...those who are in search for names for houses, children, boats and other purposes, will find a rich treasury of words native to their own land…’ While simultaneously being dispossessed from our land and waters, and having children stolen, our words were served up with no connection to people or place in the form of ‘Aboriginal’ word-list dictionaries. These dillybag necklaces reclaim the act of record and story keeping through the physical acts of deconstruction and reconstruction. Using the pages of the book I have created a paper string that has been woven back together with the use of bookbinding thread. They present a new and elevated story held within the creation of their forms.

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Jenna Lee is a Gulumerridjin (Larrakia), Wardaman and KarraJarri Saltwater woman with mixed Japanese, Chinese, Filipino and Anglo-Australian ancestry. Using art to explore and celebrate her many overlapping identities, Lee works across sculpture, installation, and body adornment.Driven to create work in which she, her family, and the broader mixed First Nations community see themselves represented, Lee builds on a foundation of her father’s teachings of culture and her mother’s teachings of paper craft..

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Material: pages of ‘Aboriginal Words and Place Names’, bookbinding thread, red silk thread

Dimensions:  4cm x 4cm x 45cm