A nine-metre timber tower, built for the fifth annual NGV Architecture Commission by artist Yhonnie Scarce, a Kokatha and Nukunu woman, and the Melbourne studio Edition Office. Its form comes from traditional eel traps, which channelled water flows and made large-scale food production possible without exhausting the supply.
A narrow vertical opening leads in to two dark C-shaped chambers, close in form and scale to the permanent homes of large old villages. The charred interior points to hollowed old trees, where eels were smoked for preservation and trade. Hanging inside are 1600 hand-blown black glass murnong, or yams. The whole thing goes after the premise of Terra Nullius, which declared Australia empty, by pointing to more than 3000 generations of Indigenous building, industry and farming.
