Welcome to ACMI: New work encourages visitors to think about country

Mick Harding wants us to pay more attention to the natural world: the water, the land and the sky.

“Because we’re in and on them or around them every single day of our lives, we don’t pay them the close scrutiny we really should,” he says.

In Indigenous culture, everything is respected and because of that relationship, Harding says: “We understand our responsibilities. Everything is connected.”

From the Yowong-Illam-Baluk and Nattarak Baluk clans of the Taungurung people of central Victoria, Harding’s animated film – called Baan Biik Woora Woora Water, Land and Sky – is an ode to the natural world.

Made as a one-off commission, with $20,000 funding from the museum, the 20-minute animation will be installed in Australian Centre for the Moving Image’s entrance. Called the ACMI First Nations Welcome Installation, it screens from Friday in the museum’s Fed Square foyer, where it will serve as a permanent welcome to visitors.

As well as the earth, sky and water, the animation features kangaroos, a wombat, gliders, yellow-tail black cockatoos and a goanna, based on drawings by the 64-year-old.

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It wasn’t until his early 20s that Harding learnt he was Indigenous; he’d grown up thinking he was part Maori. The revelation marked a turning point in his life. “I never knew about my heritage as a boy,” he says, adding it began a journey of learning that continues to this day.

From then on, he was on a quest to learn more about his culture. “I started drawing, as accurately as I could, who we are as Kulin people.”