Warimi - Hello, my name is Venessa Possum, and my kinship is Muringong Ngurra (Country), acknowledging seasonal paths connecting Georges and Nepean Rivers in a region of southwest Sydney. 

 

My paternal ancestor, Budbury, was a significant Indigenous intermediary of our homelands. As such, I acknowledge my connection to the Dharawal and Gundungurra Neighbours and to Yuin Peoples Country further south.

 

I also acknowledge my Irish ancestry, which traces to the same region as my Irish ancestor John Walsh from Kilkenny, Ireland, who married my maternal ancestor Mandagary (Mary) in 1837. 

 

Aside from my positionality as a Muringong custodian, I am an early-career academic, teacher and artist based in Gulamada, now known as Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia.
 

My interdisciplinary cultural research includes a lifetime of innovative approaches to creativity and written expression, culminating in a Doctor of Philosophy in Fine Arts and Indigenous Studies from the Queensland College of Art and Design, Griffith University (2024).

 

Previous studies include a Bachelor of Contemporary Indigenous Art (CAIA) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours), and include being awarded the Chancellor's University Medals in 2017 and 2018.
 

Prior to my Indigenous studies, I was awarded a Certificate in Visual Art with Honours at the National Art School (1986-88). 

 

All aspects of my professional life are highly symbolic, demonstrating a continuity of relationality which is an aspect of my Indigenous intermediary practices within my professional art and regional curatorial practices.

As a contemporary Indiegnous artist, I focus on experiencing significant material cultures. I design public art and sensorial gallery installation and my project work, consultancy work and teaching all continue a legacy of lesser-known Indigenous kinship philosophy and stories.
 

I am a sessional academic in the Department for Critical Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University, teaching in the unit titled Dharug Ngurra.

 

I am also a current recipient of a Macquarie University Fellowship in Indigenous Research (MUFIR).

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"The living languages of Country, including footsteps and voices of ancestors and more than human kin, are my teachers. They are guiding my muru (path) of intermediating

value based knowledges" (Venessa Possum 2026).