MMeets — Weaving with Bronwyn Razem

Image courtesy Bronwyn Razem

Join Gunditjmara artist and master weaver Bronwyn Razem for a day of sharing knowledge of traditional weaving passed on through her Gunditjmara family heritage.

In the morning, Bronwyn will teach you how to sculpt hay with wool to create a Bush Animal with real personality, inspired by the Tjanpi Desert Weavers.

Later, she will take you through traditional weaving techniques to make baskets, while you all sit together, yarn and connect.

Drop into MPavilion for any or some of the time and feel free to bring a packed lunch!

Photo by Geelong Advertiser.

Bronwyn was born in Gunditjmara Country, Warrnambool and comes from a long lineage of Traditional weavers. Bronwyn learned from her grandmother Georgina and mother Zelda Couzens.

Bronwyn has played a vital role in the revival of the Traditional eel trap. In 2013, her eel trap with emu feathers granted her the Acquisitive Award in the Victorian Indigenous Arts Awards.

The National Museum Australia in Canberra as well as the Art Gallery of Ballarat have curated her eel traps for their permanent collections. As a representative of Ngardang Girri Kalat Mimini’s—four of Victoria’s most prominent Indigenous female artists—Bronwyn was selected to attend the Festival of Pacific Arts in 2016.

A highlight in her career marked exhibiting with two of her eel traps alongside artists such as Vicki Couzens, Glenda Nicholls and Maree Clarke—who she had looked up to all her life—in the 2017 Sovereignty exhibition at the Australian Centre of Contemporary Art (ACCA) in Melbourne.

Through her work, Bronwyn acknowledges the importance of maintaining the cultural knowledge behind the weaving and the role this played in times past. Teaching traditional weaving techniques asserts the strength of this cultural practice that was utilised for every day life.

Bronwyn’s workshops make an important contribution to reconnecting Aboriginal people with their culture and strengthening their identities, as well as bringing forth awareness and cultural values of Aboriginal people to the general public and educational institutions.

Host or Publisher MPavilion