13 Radio waves
Murri Country
Megan Gaynor
I was drawn to write on the Murri Country poster for a few reasons: its colour, composition, language, and, of course, the centrality of music.
I was immediately drawn to its striking graphic focus and the inherent visual reading in and of the text.
My interpretation linked ancient Songlines in the landscape for my “binung” (ears) with a new meaning; rich in protest and passion but grounded in the unbroken musical messages embedded in land and life.
Murri Country brings consideration to its significance as the first Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander radio station in Australia, reimagining the spiritual and cultural strength of storytelling that always was and always will be on and in this land.
Perhaps the teaching of culture and law inherent in Songlines has travelled through the airwaves, morphing into a new platform of song and Ceremony?
The poster not only incorporates language, symbolic of cultural pride, but the composition speaks volumes with its use of colour, pattern and design to support its messages of culture.
My personal journey into cultural learning has been strengthened by Lilla Watson’s custodianship of this piece, conceivably signifying her intentions of artist, activist and educator instantaneously. The poster’s vivid and intentional use of colour and text declares her educative legacy of sharing cultural knowledge and the impact it has for all of us.
Lilla Watson’s collection extends and invitation for an audience to listen more deeply, just like the radio waves of Murri Country, in traditions that elevate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture to a true place in all our minds, hearts and lives.
* * *
Link to the Fryer Library Collection
Triple A, ‘Please your binung : tune in 98.9 FM’, (undated), Lilla Watson Papers, UQFL576, Parcel 2, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.
Biography
Megan Gaynor studied Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and Art History at The University of Queensland (UQ) before completing a postgraduate diploma of Teaching and Learning at The University of Southern Queensland. These areas, combined her intersecting passions of visual art, literature, cultural learning and education, and were central in her nurturing of children to realise the personal and collective power of expression. She helped to facilitate the engagement of education providers in a community-based Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) and is now back at UQ where her journey into Reconciliation began and will continue.
