Stacey Campton

Director, Indigenous Engagement, RMIT University

I am currently the Director of Indigenous Engagement at RMIT, and previously I was the Director of the Ngarara Willim Centre, our Indigenous student service centre. Ngarara Willim is very much the central place where Indigenous staff and students gather; where we provide support services for our students, where our staff has a place to go on campus, where other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples can congregate. When I got to RMIT, it was one of the only places that felt like a space that we owned or occupied in the whole campus, if not all of our campuses of RMIT.

When discussions about the New Academic Street began, there was talk of painting a mural but it wasn’t really clear exactly where or what that mural would be. There was a lot of discussion and eventually this concept evolved from being just a space on a wall to what we have today. It took a while to get to the idea of the Wurrunggi Biik: Law of the Land sculpture, but it wasn’t a difficult decision to make once the argument was put forward that we have to recognise our First Nations people. It wasn’t necessarily about convincing people, it was more a case of ‘Let’s think bigger than something painted on a wall down in the third level of a building. Let’s do something spectacular.’

One of the best ways to recognise First Nations people is to do it visibly, and Wurrunggi Biik: Law of the Land is the visible representation of what Sovereignty looks like and how it feels to be walking on Country that was never ceded, Country that belongs to the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nations. There has been a lot of work done in the last 4–5 years to make non-Indigenous people feel comfortable about Indigenous Sovereignty and self-determination. Non-Indigenous people need to take responsibility within their own schools and colleges to acknowledge that we have to share this country and we have to be in a relationship with our First Nations people.

When Vicki came to us with the Wurrunggi Biik: Law of the Land concept, it was absolutely perfect. It was the perfect representation of Victorian Aboriginal people. It was a perfect representation of Bundjil; what Bundjil is in a visible way.

It is also a visual representation of Sovereignty, of what RMIT are doing in the space of reconciliation and Indigenous self-determination and what the RMIT community would like to be known for. We also have Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students that come from all over—not only Victoria but all across Australia. Sovereignty for us is who we are. Sovereignty follows us no matter where we go; we know who we are as Sovereign people, we know our Country, we know our identity, we know our family groups.

I know our Indigenous students are extremely proud to walk out of Ngarara Willim to see the sculpture standing there. Every time I walk up and down Bowen Street, I see that little piece of identity that talks to me and reminds me that this huge university sits on Country that has a lot of history and that we, as a university, have honoured that in some small way. Well, I say it’s small, but really it’s 2.3 metres tall. With Wurrunggi Biik: Law of the Land, we’ve got something visible, something physical to refer to. We can put a flag in the earth and say to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people now that we actually matter.

As Aboriginal women, we can say, ‘I can actually see myself reflected in this place,’ and that is the concept that we kept coming back to. If you want people to come here, if you want our people to come here, if you want international students to come here, they have to see themselves reflected in this place. For us as Aboriginal people, it means just that little bit more. We’ve claimed back a little bit more of that Country and shown that we have not only every right to belong here, but we’ve shown it with grace and dignity.