YARAAN COUZENS BUNDLE

(She/her)
Cultural artist

7 October 2021
Gunditjmara Country

My name is Yaraan Couzens Bundle. I’m a proud Gunditjmara, Yuin and Bidjara woman. I currently live on Djab Wurrung Country, which is part of the [Country of the] Gunditjmara people who I come from, in South West Victoria. I live [here] with my two young children and my two dogs. I’m a single mum, cultural artist, language teacher and traditional dancer. Throughout the pandemic, it’s been really difficult to [work]. Most of the work that I do is hands-on people work, especially with young people, so it’s been pretty restricted.

Something that we’ve held on to throughout the pandemic is keeping that connection and those kinships really strong. As a community person [with] a big family and mob, we just have to keep yarning. That was the main theme throughout the pandemic, keeping those kinships alive by just having conversations. So, when the time does come, we have all these amazing networks that haven’t been sitting idle. I think that’s one thing us Blackfellas are really good at – having that connection and keeping those yarns happening. It’s funny, horrible things like the pandemic and our sites being destroyed and other things that we don’t really have the power to change in that moment, it’s brought about more healing and connection. There’s a lot of amazing things that have come out of the pandemic from people going, “Well, what are the values and the things that matter most to me? What [do] we have to focus on?” There’s actually a few more positives in all the negatives that we’ve experienced.

[It’s been helpful that] we can fall back on these cultural structures that we’ve had for thousands of years. When you apply those old ways of being, it just opens up so much more healing and medicine and ways of living. The world’s talking about fear and sickness at the moment, and we’ve still got the same yarn. We’ve been having that yarn about caring for each other and Country for a very long time. It’s important knowing that there is a future beyond the pandemic that a lot of people can’t recognise yet because they’re stuck in that fearful way of being. Finding something that we can do when this is all over, to say that we made it. We need to celebrate, to have a huge celebration, and just get as many people together and dance and whatever.

Being a 36-year-old Aboriginal woman and a mother of three in 2021, the way that I see the future for someone like me, post-pandemic, is really positive. We’re rising from the ashes. We’ve been named aggressive, angry black women for protecting Country, and for trying to save and support and live by our old structures and our old ways. Not just separating that from today’s world, but incorporating and embedding it into the way that we are today. Like my old people and a lot our Elders across Australia say, work strong in both worlds. And so, we do.

Because of the pandemic [and climate change], we can start fresh and go back to really embedding these old cultural structures into today’s society. It isn’t just a benefit for Aboriginal people. It’s a benefit for the world, because of how clever them old people [are] in looking after Country. So, I hope whoever listens to this in the future will recognise that we owe it to [our daughters and our young people] to create a better world, and honour that, and honour the people that are in that world.