Several curated art and bush tucker walks were held for members of the community and primary school children as part of Tree Project in 2018. Local resident, Jo Russel, an Indigenous educator and bush food expert along with Heather Hesterman invited the community to join them for weekend walks at Woodlands Historic Park in Greenvale.
This site has numerous old trees that were present prior to settler colonization. Whilst walking, trees, plants, art and cultural knowledge was discussed as old Eucalyptus camandulensis (River Red Gum) looked on.
At the end of the walks, people were invited to assist in the creation of a rubbing on yellow paper of the bark and girth of a selected River Red Gum. In that instance during the activity both people and tree were combined in a single action, resulting in a tangible document memorialising the gesture. Later participants names and ages were screenprinted into the paper with the rubbings from the 200-250 year old tree to provide a record of the girth (age) of the tree and people present.
The results were exhibited as part of the exhibition TreeProject, along with drawings by primary students who undertook similar field-trip walks with Jo and Heather.
Heather Hesterman 