NADIGA (at the Armidale Showground)

NADIGA means walk in Anaiwan. It is also the title of a day-long exhibition by Anaiwan artist Gabi Briggs at the Armidale Showground. The notion that walking Country is a form of knowledge-regeneration underpins three works: GEDYURA, TENYA, and ARKAN & IRBELA. These have only ever been shown in Melbourne on Wurundjeri Country and as such, their journey to Armidale can be understood as a return home. This exhibition forms a key component of her PhD research.

In Gabi’s research, walking and the artworks that emerge from it are inseparable. The works grow from the movement, listening, and remembering that happen while walking on Country. This approach is grounded in her grandmother Patsy Cohen’s book, Ingelba and the Five Black Matriarchs (1990), where walking emerges as a cultural practice and research methodology. Gabi extends this lineage in her own practice– through walking, rearticulating and continuing her nan’s work in embodied, relational ways.

The Armidale showground is entwined with this history of movement. Ingelba was once positioned in relation to the broader world through the walk to the Armidale Show. Under colonial control their movement became restricted, with authorities able to order the removal of Aboriginal people from towns. Now the Showground is being returned to Ingelba’s relational frame through the artworks, the gathering, and the planned walk that will culminate here.

NADIGA forms part of a longer project – to eventually walk Country with kin, particularly the 100km path from the former Ingelba Aboriginal Reserve to the Armidale showground. As such, NADIGA brings family together to prepare for the journey, to deepen a shared understanding that movement across Country is an ongoing cultural practice, and a mode of knowledge-making that persists despite colonial interruption.

Image: Poster designed by Marilena Hewitt