Transcript
As spoken by Tim Moriarty

This transcript is drawn from an audio recording. It has been lightly edited for clarity and readability while preserving the participant’s original voice and meaning.

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So I started off living and working long after I'd been to school on Cammeraygal land. So every morning we'd have the Hegarty's Ferry, which would go from Old Cremorne, which I'm sitting close to at the moment, and it would take us all the way to Rose Bay, and we'd all walk up to school and back from school. So I guess my first feeling of a sanctuary of this place was walking through jungle from Old Cremorne.

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Right now we are sitting in what's called the Eco Retreat at Taronga Zoo, and it's a series of 160 different rooms. So you wake up, you open up the curtains, and you're right in the middle of an animal sanctuary, which is pretty special because that couldn't be closer to my heart.​ And the significance of this spot is, throughout Taronga's development, I've been involved with what was one of their very first Welcome to Country sculptures, which I believe is still down at the entrance near the ferry. And that was a series of metal pieces celebrating materiality, talking about Indigenous culture and non-Indigenous culture. And through the years, that progressed to a wonderful opportunity where I was able to showcase my art from all around Australia into those rooms.

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So the space we are currently in is one of those hotel suites where there are two prints. So the prints talk about a place in Australia, but they also talk about what inhabited that place. For example, the one I'm looking at, at the moment is a site called Karabarini, and that's Cockatoo Dreaming. That's where we're from, the Yanyuwa people. And so Caranbirini and Cockatoo Dreaming is where my stories are based.

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So one of the significant things I've always found about living on Cammeraygal land is just the amount of layers that I continue to be discovering, to be taught about. And so if you think about the concept of hiding in plain sight, this area here is a beautiful example of that. So when we're down at the Coal Loader, for example, I've been shown by some beautiful Elders there about the shark dreamings, but also around the point there where we have some sacred rock art sites, which most people don't even know about.​ There's a lot of practice still being done here all the way up to the Northern Beaches.

 

I talk a lot about intergenerational knowledge transfer. So just as much as it is important for Elders to be teaching the younger generation, the Elders also learn from the younger generation. I'm constantly blown away. It's such a positive, beautiful environment, inclusive, especially for the older generation.

 

So the memories I have of growing up with homosexuality was it was all very secret and all very hidden away. And I guess the strongest memory is this realization that there's this strong undercurrent of support and this new generation that identifies however they would like to identify at school, and just that huge shift in such a small amount of time.