National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards

Cassie Leatham is an artists from Gippsland who has devoted her life to teaching others about Indigenous Food, medicine, arts and culture. Her workshops include traditional cooking techniques and how to weave mats and baskets, make pots and totems just as her ancestors did.

Recently Leatham has run Zoom workshops for children on how to make little animals from what they can find in the bush. Her art is not only about sustainable living but also about healing. With an incredible knowledge of medicinal plants and herbs along with traditional “bushtukka” Leatham strives to educate on, “edibles from plant to plate.”

Leatham describes herself as a “humble bushwoman who just wants to share.”

Her sculptures and pots are made also with materials sourced from the bush including, pipe clay, ochre, stringy bark, sand crystals and eagle feathers.

For the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA) exhibition this year Leatham has entered her Pot Of Knowledge which tells the story of her people. Of the arrival of Bunjil the wedge tailed eagle, and of how men and women were created when a meteorite hit the earth.

The 37th Telstra NATSIAA aims to showcase the very best in Australian Indigenous art from artists from across Australia.

For further exhibition details and updates to online events: www.magnt.net.au/natsiaa

By Renee Lou Dallow