Ben Apfelbaum

WHISPERS : THE WORK OF QUANDAMOOKA ARTIST MEGAN COPE

 

On Tubowgule, now called Bennelong Point, Quandamooka artist Megan Cope introduces Whispers, a melding of First Nations history and environmental consciousness. With more than 85,000 oyster shells positioned across the Sydney Opera House precinct, the artist evokes the ancestral midden sites that were used on this site for Aboriginal celebrations and gatherings for thousands of years.

With oyster shells, Cope has reimagined the architectural framework of the Opera House itself. Two hundred timber Kinyingarra Guwinyanba poles – the phrase means “a place of oysters” in the Jandai language of the Quandamooka people – have transformed the Northern Broadwalk into a landscape of cultural history and community. These poles, covered with oysters, stand as symbols of ecological rebirth and ancestral homage, echoing the call of collective memory and Indigenous resilience. They connect to a 14m wall of shells that frame the western side of the building and emerge through the upper podium. 

A singular artistic statement, Whispers beats with the spirit of community. Over the past year, more than 3000 volunteers have taken part in over 100 workshops in three key sites – the Opera House Forecourt, Addison Road Community Centre in Marrickville and the artist’s studio in Brisbane – where they  worked together to clean, polish, drill and thread thousands of shells by hand. Together, these volunteers  created a rich tapestry of shared narratives and kinships, elevating the humble oyster shell into a symbol of a community, heritage and Country.

Photos by Ben Apfelbaum 

Published by Ben Apfelbaum

My photography began when my father handed me the proverbial brownie box camera as a child. As cameras developed I went through Fujica and Olympus range finders graduating to my first single lens reflex camera, the Minolta SRT101, the latter being the greatest facilitator to my growth as a photographer. Digital photography has only added to this. I was a regular contributor to Camera Craft magazine (Australian Camera ) for over three years. During Australia’s Bicentennial year (1988) I made it a personal project to document the celebrations. This culminated in the creation of a book of my photos which was published in 1989. The book was called CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA and came with an accompanying calendar. My works have appeared in a number of publications including the coffee book entitled MY AUSTRALIA (1989), publisher Robertsbridge Severn. This book had a preface by the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. I was a co-photographer on a book entitled SYDNEY- DISCOVER THE CITY with text written by Robert Treborlang. Major Mitchell Press was the publisher. Also for two years I was the photographer for calendars celebrating Sydney’s multicultural communities. The two calendars were entitled MULTICULTURAL SYDNEY. My work appeared in a group exhibition held at Sydney’s Town Hall pertaining to the diversity of life in South America to raise money for orphanages there. I have over one hundred photos stored in the New South Wales State Library archive. I had a solo exhibition held in 2007 entitled Ben’s Lens at the Sydney Jewish Museum which celebrated the vibrancy of the Sydney Jewish community. Some of these photos are on the Museum’s permanent display. I have exhibited internationally firstly at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta Georgia, United States, and in an exhibition entitled Kosher and Co at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Currently I am a regular contributor to J-Wire and this esteemed publication. To celebrate the opening of a permanent Photography Gallery, the State Library of New South Wales selected 400 shots from its archive of over 2,000,000 images to display in the new gallery. An image of mine was plucked out of the multi million photo archive to be part of the inaugural exhibition.