Dialog Arts led the delivery of a public play sculpture by Keg de Souza. Commissioned for the Providence Lawn at Abbotsford Convent by the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), Nganga toornung-nge dharraga Bunjil takes the form of a garden and play equipment. It is designed as ‘a grassland learning garden’, and a sculpture intended for climbing, play and relaxation for visitors of all ages.

As a garden, Nganga toornung-nge dharraga Bunjil reflects de Souza’s interests in practices of re- wilding colonised landscapes and the resistance of nature to taming and control. Working with local advisers and suppliers, the garden is populated with grasses and aromatic flowers that are endemic to this area, where, ‘In Victoria’, as de Souza notes, ‘99.3% of native grassland areas have disappeared’.

The sculpture offers an aerial perspective from which to view native garden. The title of the work, Nganga toornung-nge dharraga Bunjil, is a Wurundjeri phrase roughly translated as ‘looking down from the wings of Bunjil’. The name was generously offered during de Souza’s consultations and conversations with Wurundjeri Elders and the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation.

Photographs by Andrew Curtis.