Residency dates: September 15th – October 31st 2019

Vicki Couzens is a Gunditjmara citizen from the Western Districts of Victoria, Australia. Vicki acknowledges her Ancestors and Elders who guide her work. She has worked in Aboriginal community affairs for almost 40 years and is Senior Knowledge Custodian for Possum Cloak Story and Language Reclamation in her Keerray Woorroong Mother Tongue.
 Vicki has distinguished herself with her interdisciplinary artwork, or as she prefers, ‘creative cultural expression’ – painting, installation, visual arts, printmaking, mixed media, performing arts, language revitalization, ceremony and teaching – and is widely known for her central role in the revival of the possum skin cloak making tradition which began in Victoria and is now established across south-eastern Australia. Vicki is a Vice Chancellors Indigenous Research Fellow at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University.

It was a call from the Ancestors to re-awaken the songlines of Possum Cloak Story, to return the cloaks to our People, to reclaim, regenerate, revitalize and remember — that is the Old Peoples’ story and our journey is to carry this vision forward.

 Vicki Couzens (courtesy of the Australian Council for the Arts)