Moorundi Health Clinic: Collaboration with Damien Shen

Damien Shen is a South Australian man of Ngarrindjeri (Aboriginal) and Chinese descent. As an artist he draws on both of these powerful cultural influences to create works of intense personal meaning. In using his artistic talent to share his story he aims to open the eyes of viewers to new ways of seeing Australian identity and Aboriginal art.

Damien Shen constantly pushes his practice across different mediums. From time consuming, labor intensive drawings and paintings to bleeding watercolors, printmaking and photography, he is constantly constructing and deconstructing the world around him. Through this imagery he better understands his identity and the identity of those that help to shape the world he lives and the content remains relevant to contemporary Australian issues around race, history and politics.

In February 2016, Damien Shen was the winner of the Blake Prize (emerging category), December 2015, the winner of the Prospect Portraiture prize, and a finalist in the prestigious Whyalla Art Prize and Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award along with being hand-picked for the Art Gallery of South Australia’s Tarnanthi Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art. Damien Shen lives and works in Adelaide, South Australia.¹

In 1859 missionary George Taplin “officially” founded the Point McLeay Mission at Raukkan. Raukkan Primary School was opened in 1860 and remains one of South Australia’s oldest and most historic educational institutions. In 1916 the Government took over the Mission from the Aborigines Friends Association, administering it as a Reserve. In 1974 Point McLeay (Raukkan) was finally handed back freehold to the Ngarrindjeri people. Now the community council and community owned farm are an inspirational model of community management and care.

Raukkan is home to about 105 residents. Residents are employed in a range of industries offered by local businesses that include land management and conservation, hospitality, tourism, education, civil services and health. Further opportunities are expected in the health sector with the implementation of Moorundi Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service. Raukkan Community Council, elected by the community has developed a cultural framework which provides strategic direction for a healthy, vibrant and sustainable community into the future. Today Raukkan is well known throughout Australia for the Raukkan Church which is featured on the Australian 50 Dollar note.

The mural was painted on the side of the Moorundi ACCHS Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service a self run nationally unique and leading organization in Aboriginal Health Service and features a depiction of 3 generations of community leaders, Aunty Sandy, Senior Health Worker Dorothy Kartinyeri and young Anthony from Raukkan Primary School.

I participated in a photographic exploration of community portraits led by Damien Shen, who inspired by early colonial era photographs of aboriginal Australians uses photography to unpackage meaning around photography and its use in the documentation of first nation Australians and their culture as well as own cultural heritage. Here we conducted a workshop session at Raukkan Primary, Mooroondi Health Clinic and leading elders around the community as well as being present for the historic return of Indigenous World War One Serviceman Private Miller Mack’s remains to country. These photos formed the inspiration for the mural and commemoration of this small and special community at the headwaters of the Coorong, South Australia. Thanks to Uncle Clyde, Aunty Sandy, Aunty Betty the young kids of Raukkan Community