Budjerri Dyillagamu: Peggeralin

“Budjerri Dyillagami: Peggeralin” translates to “Welcome to the mountains: Dreaming” in Ngarigo language and is an animated short film I created in collaboration with Peter Waples-Crowe, a queer indigenous artist and all around top bloke. The film was shown as part of Peter’s show “Inside Out” at the Koori Heritage Trust in Melbourne, in the month of May 2019.

The film is an imagined queer creation dreaming story. A genderfluid figure crashes into the earth from an asteroid. Their face and body is in a constant state of flux, never resting on one identity, always changing, representing those not easily defined by existing binaries. Their chest is marked with a rainbow, pointing at traditional techniques of scarification as body embellishment. From their hand, rainbows emerge, and where they meet the ground smaller figures are birthed. These queer children then walk on populating the earth as the larger deity returns to the skies in astral form.

The mountains in the film are 3D scans of Peter’s home and workspace. The shifting faces include Peter’s and my own. The work represents the conversations and connection we shared while getting to know each other when working on this project.