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About our project
Welcome to the blog for the research project, Kinning with the Unseen More-Than-Human: Re-sensing Barrambin’s disappeared waterways and creeks. Our goal is to, through collaborative design with the community, inspire a deeper connection between the residents of Kelvin Grove and the rich history of the ground they live and work on, through a re-sensing of the…
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Introduction (“It’s all Swamp”)
Beyond simply knowing, the residents and dwellers of Brisbane sense that the lands on which we live and work were—and are—swamp: fed by rainfall, criss-crossed by waterways and wetlands. We sense it when unseasonable rain turns the streets back to creeks, ignoring what has been built there since Brisbane was established. Such an anthropocentric understanding…
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Water paths, topographic imprints
The waterways of Barrambin are not gone; they have simply been rendered invisible. Strung out along the full extent of Barrambin’s original waterbed, hidden under concrete and drain covers, are a series of subterranean stormwater drains that together carry the currents which once flowed through the wetland. Not all surface evidence of the waterways has…
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Barrambin: The Windy Place
Barrambin is the Turrbal name for the wetland that ran across the flats northwest of Brisbane City. The name means “windy place,” an indicator of the weather conditions in that expanse between the ridges, which persist to this day (Kerkhove, 2018). With individuals living close to these waters even before the establishment of the European…
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Walking with the ghost of the waterways
Swamps are transitional spaces, neither land nor water. The boundaries of the Barrambin wetlands and waterways would have been ever-shifting, rising and falling as the wet and dry seasons came and went in turns. It was a living thing, drawing water into itself, and exhaling it in drought. Like all swamps, Barrambin would have gathered…
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A bird’s eye view of Barrambin
Previous industry surveys of the Barrambin area have recognised the locale as one of high habitat potential, especially since the re-introduction of artificial ponds along the Inner City Bypass in the 1930s (SKM Connell Wagner, 2008). The zone sports forests of native eucalyptus and melaleuca trees and 20 native animal species (SKM Aurecon, 2011; SKM…
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Mapping the waters on the urban present
The map below represents the pre-colonial wetlands and creeks overlaid on present-day infrastructure. Locations of waterways and swampland are approximated, based on two colonial maps—Henry Wade’s Map of the Environs of Brisbane, published by the Surveyor General’s Department (Wade, 1844) and Blueprint copy of a plan of Brisbane Town published by the Moreton Bay District…
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The water story of Kelvin Grove State College
It was my privilege to meet Mr Jimmy Southwood from the Kelvin Grove State College. Jimmy and the team at KGSC have undertaken eight years of research into the First Nations history of the land that their campus is built upon, consulting with Elders to design the school house totems and to refine the Indigenous…
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The Acclimatisation Society
Early in the period of Brisbane’s colonisation, the Brisbane Municipal Council had marked York’s Hollow as a water reserve, being one of the main catchments of the city’s water supply. In 1863—at the prompting of the Council—the local government declared the lands of Barrambin (Victoria Park) to be a reserve for recreational use (Greenwood &…
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Spring walk – past, present, future
As part of our ongoing review of the present-day Barrambin site, I have previously undertaken three walks through the parklands: on 9 August 2022 (9-11am), 11 August 2022 (1-4pm), and 16 August 2022 (7-8pm). These are captured in the site’s gallery page. After the first three walks revealed interesting insights about the Victoria Park Parklands,…
