Acknowledgement of Country
A note from the garage, on Wadawurrung land.
Electronic Zoology is made on the lands of the Wadawurrung People, the Traditional Custodians of the Bellarine Peninsula, its waterways and its skies.
I acknowledge their Elders past and present, and pay my respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who read this. I acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded.
Where this is written
The garage sits on Bellawiyn — the Wadawurrung name for the Bellarine Peninsula, meaning place of resting by the fire. Wadawurrung Country stretches from the coast at Aireys Inlet, around the Bellarine and up through Djilang (Geelong) to Ballarat and the Great Dividing Range. It is one of the five nations of the Kulin.
These lands, waters and skies have been cared for across thousands of generations. The middens, songlines, scar trees and gathering places of the Bellarine are not relics; they are living culture. Wadawurrung People are still here, still caring for Country.
Why this matters to a maker
Everything built in this garage — the circuits, the prints, the salvaged screens, the code — draws on the materials and quiet of this place. The workbench sits on soil that has held story, law and craft for tens of thousands of years before a soldering iron was ever switched on here.
Acknowledging that is the smallest thing I can do. Listening, reading, and supporting Wadawurrung-led work is the rest.
Further reading & support
- Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation The Registered Aboriginal Party for Wadawurrung Country.
- Paleert Tjaara Dja — Wadawurrung Country Plan Let’s make Country good together, 2020–2030.
- AIATSIS Map of Indigenous Australia Find whose Country you’re on, wherever you are.
Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.