Five giant cubes have landed on Harbour Esplanade, and Journey of a Smoking Ceremony is the reason you’ll stop walking.
Journey of a Smoking Ceremony is a free outdoor photo series by Melbourne First Nations photographer and visual storyteller James Henry, made specifically for this stretch of the Docklands waterfront. Across 20 images spread over the five cubes, Henry tracks Wurundjeri Elder Uncle Bill Nicholson and his son Damien as they pick and sort leaves, get the fire going and share the smoke.
Smoking ceremonies have been used by First Nations people for thousands of years to cleanse people and places and to promote wellbeing. Rather than staging anything, Henry shaped the shoot around the way Uncle Bill and Damien normally run a ceremony. He photographed the moody scenes while the leaves were being chosen, zoomed in on the freshly picked foliage, and finished with frames of flame and smoke captured right there in Docklands.
Journey of a Smoking Ceremony
- Where: Harbour Esplanade, Docklands (between the Ferry Terminal and Sunset Point)
- When: Now until 20 December
- Price: Free, no booking needed
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Docklands sits on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people, and the work was commissioned with that in mind. Wildcard Collective director Kate Spencer produced the project, with independent curator Brendan McCleary on board and support from local stakeholders including the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation.
Henry pitches the series as an open invitation to connect with Wurundjeri Country and culture. He sees the ceremony as common ground, a way for non-First Nations passers-by to learn about the practice while Wurundjeri Elders and knowledge holders tell the story their own way. His own job, as he frames it, is to carry their voices and connection to place without steering the narrative. Seeing the photos blown up to this size on the harbour struck him as surreal, and the scale means you can catch the detail of individual leaves up close or take in the whole sequence from further back.
The promenade has doubled as a gallery before, most recently when the Now or Never Art Trail set up along the water. This one runs until 20 December, which gives you seven weeks to wander down between the Ferry Terminal and Sunset Point with a coffee.
For more information, head here.
