Marion Gaemers • Belonging 2018

Eddie Mabo believed that all people are equal, and that knowledge of identity and place is important to the health and wellbeing of everyone. His memorial on the banks of Ross Creek in Townsville has a pebble mosaic of Malo, the ancestral octopus that brought the laws of tradition to the people of the Torres Strait Islands. My artwork is a woven representation of an octopus protecting a coral bommie looking after its home in the ocean, while the Torresian Imperial Pigeons fly above. They fly between the Torres Straits and north Queensland, making a nest and bringing up their young in Townsville.

····· Born to Dutch parents, Marion Gaemers has been exhibiting nationally since 1988, and is a lynchpin of Townsville’s artistic community. Gaemers considers herself a basket maker continuing the traditions of women using traditional techniques. In 1995/6, Gaemers worked with Flying Arts Queensland and travelled to various regional North Queensland communities including Darnley Island. Since 2010, Gaemers has been involved in the GhostNet program, going into North Queensland communities, working with the beach rubbish that was collected by rangers. Gaemers has been working collaboratively with Darnley Island’s Erub Arts with nets and rope, and has exhibited with Erub Arts in the Sydney Biennale (2016), Ghost nets of the Ocean Asian Civilization Museum (Singapore, 2017), Tarnanthi, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (2017). In 2015 Gaemers was the lead artist in a Townsville community collaboration, making reef forms with various recycled materials, which was exhibited in Perc Tucker Regional Gallery (2015) and in Sculpture by the Sea, Sydney (2016).