When I walk into Carriageworks for the opening address of Sydney Writers’ Festival, I have only been back in Sydney for a few hours, having just returned from the south coast where I’ve spent the last three days on Yuin Country. I’ve been down there staying in an old fisherman’s cottage bordered by burnt yellow banksias, with kangaroos lounging on the grass at the foot of the driveway, and rain that fell gently for days. My time on the south coast was still and quiet and wandering, which means that when I find myself now walking into Carriageworks, dressed up for Opening Night, the shock of metal and concrete and white light is a small kick between the shoulder blades – a slight jolt to the nervous system.
I think of the thin openings of sky that I’ve witnessed these last few days, where the clouds parted just wide enough for a pillar of light to pass through them, illuminating a small patch of ocean. I think of the tide sweeping in over a rock shelf, then receding as effortlessly as it had arrived. The curtain call begins to ring through Carriageworks’ cavernous foyer, calling a packed crowd across polished floors, into Bay 17. I find my seat and sit down with a cup of water; the lights dim and the Festival opens with a generous, deep, and unflinching Welcome to Gadigal Country from Wiradjuri woman, Yvonne Weldon on behalf of the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council, followed by the Festival’s necessary formalities, thanking sponsors and welcoming distinguished guests and patrons.
Thomas Mayo is then called to the stage and he opens with the first of four author readings, all which have been written in response to this year’s Festival’s theme – In This Together. Thomas Mayo – a Kaurareg Aboriginal and Kalkalgal, Erubamle Torres Strait Islander man – speaks truth to the room, to the history of this continent as being home to the oldest continuing surviving cultures on the planet, and to the overwhelming good he sees in people, as he turns our attention to the Voice to Parliament Referendum, to the No vote. I watch the way Thomas is standing, chest stretched in the bright glow of the stage lights, holding the weight of these words like sun on the shoulders. I observe his strength, his kindness, and his quiet resolve, as he looks up at the crowd and recites the Uluru Statement from the Heart. I am floored by this choice to repeat, with such steady conviction, the Uluru Statement from the Heart in this moment, in the wake of the No vote, and then I remember that this continent is home to the First and Original storytellers, and that stories have been sung across these lands and in these waters and under these skies since time immemorial, that they’ve been carried here, not in books, but held in mouths, made true through repetition, told again and again and again. I think of how in the wake of the No vote, Thomas is, in this moment, resisting the sentiment that this story is over. By repeating the words of the Uluru Statement of the Heart, he is telling the story again, as a way to resist, but also as a way to survive. When he concludes, he receives a standing ovation.
I sit back in my seat in Bay 17. It’s the biggest hall in Carriageworks. I consider how industrial this building is – all sleek metal and concrete – how jagged and sharp its edges, and think of how in a world that is insisting on us being industrious, we are encouraged to be economic not only in the physical structures we erect, but also in the stories we build about ourselves and each other. We aggressively cut the word count down, shaving off meaning, deleting nuance, and losing the richness that is afforded in long form writing in exchange for sharp headlines and soundbites. But then, the widely loved and critically acclaimed Nardi Simpson – a Yuwaalaraay storyteller and performer – takes to the stage between international heavy weights Lemn Sissay and Jeanette Winterson. She begins to tell us a story passed to her by a cousin of the mission her paternal grandparents were born on. She describes how her Old People sang into their river so that the water would carry language through fences the white people had erected, and into the mission where the young ones who weren’t allowed to speak their language could still hear the songs of their ancestors.
Nardi says, “they sang so that language would recognise speaker.”
And then, she teaches a song to one half of the room, and then to the other half of the room, another iteration of the same song. I watch her move between the two halves, walking back and forth across the stage, guiding this song across the room with the gentle sweep of her hand. In low light, I see the river flow into Bay 17, as the crowd sings through the soft dark in call and response. I think of those thin openings of sky on the south coast, where the clouds parted just wide enough for a pillar of light to pass through them, illuminating a small patch of ocean … I consider how in this world that is forcing us to be industrious not only with our words, but also with each other, Nardi encourages us to think more like rivers, speak like rivers, to be with each other, back and forth in undulations, long and unending.
It is this expansive energy, generously summoned by Nardi Simpson, that I hope we can all bring to the Festival this week.
– Dylin Hardcastle
