‘Wellama’ means ‘to come back’ and is a 10-minute looped audio-visual artwork by Alison Page and Nik Lachajczak that is a celebration of ritual, ceremony and story practised on Country since time immemorial. Commissioned as a permanent work for the entrance to the Cutaway in Barangaroo Reserve, it welcomes visitors to Gadigal Country and pays respect to the Traditional Custodians of the land.
Today’s ‘Welcome to Country’ is an adaptation of longstanding traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander practices whereby a Country’s hosting group would welcome visitors, providing them with safe passage and spiritual protection. Though nowadays it is largely witnessed as a protocol for the commencement of formal events, Wellama is an immersive and holistic experience that acknowledges the significance of the land’s Traditional Custodians and their Country.
The film and the concept around it is about a loop, so the film itself doesn’t have any beginning, middle, or end and it plays with the Aboriginal notion of time, the idea that time is cyclical, that 65,000 years exists right here, right now.
Client: BARANGAROO DELIVERY AUTHORITY (now Infrastructure NSW)
