Strength through Sharing breathes contemporary life into ancient story

Move over Madame Tussauds. The Tuesday Women's Cultural Group has an exhibition of deadly statues in Port Kembla to put world-famous wax dummies in the shade.

Strength through Sharing brings legends to life, using mixed materials, including acacia branches and palm leaves collected on the most significant women's site in the Illawarra – Djeera, the grandmother mountain also known as Mount Keira.  And, in doing so, it connects the creators with a continuous culture of knowledge sharing dating back 65,000 years.

It took 30 women from many mobs 62 weeks to make the seven large sculptures on show at the Illawarra Aboriginal Corporation this month. Their contemporary works were inspired by the Dreaming story of Djeera (Geera), her father Oola boola woo (the West Wind) and the five defiant daughters blown out to sea to become the Five Islands. 

Djeera is traditionally a place for teaching – a practice at the heart of the Tuesday Women's Cultural Group.

Kara Henderson is one of its younger members. 

“I'm from the Wollongong area on Dharawal Country, but our family is originally from the Wiradjuri,” Kara said.

An Aboriginal marketing specialist at TAFE, she joined the women’s group in May last year, and liked it so much she invited her creative younger sister Renee.

“We've both been coming along every Tuesday night and the ladies were really nice,” Kara said. 

They had a warm welcome from the group, which spans generations, from women in their 20s to 80s.

"We didn't know about weaving or anything; we didn't grow up with any culture in the house,” Kara said.

“Everyone just taught us everything. They're just incredible – everyone's just chatting about their life, and then at the same time we're doing something creative while we're speaking. So it's a nice family vibe and you can feel very comfortable with sharing whatever you like.”

After learning the Five Islands Dreaming story of the sisters blown out to sea, Kara and Renee worked with fellow members Josephine and Lee-Anne to create the girl known as Lilli Pilli. 

They shaped her body of chicken wire and newspaper, used recycled mesh bags to form her skin, and wove colourful circles for her tail (which is inspired by that of a dugong, not the western mermaid). A tree branch forms Lilli Pilli’s headpiece, a steel stand found at a council clean-up gives her a spine.

“The final touches was the hair, where we've used the black wool,” Kara said. “We also used raffia to make the tail.”

Kara had never done any weaving before she joined the group. “It was my first night, they were all sitting around the table and I was like ‘I don't know how to weave’. And then Aunty Wendy just taught me. She was very patient. Now I can do weaving and watch TV and not even think about it.”

In this way, a simple act has become another link in the chain of knowledge passed on over millennia. It’s something that Dharawal Elder Aunty Sharralyn Robinson takes great pride in.

“We are a really powerful group, and we do love one another and have each other's back and and share knowledge,” she said.

Aunty Shas has been a part of the group since it began seven years ago, enjoying the opportunity to come together, share wisdom and offer support. 

“We're all about sisterhood.”

Aunty Shas is glad to welcome newcomers like Kara. 

“As an elder and an aunty in the group, it's really important for me,” she said.  “The expectation of our ancestors is to to hand our knowledge on, so the young ones can carry culture and carry country forward.”

The Tuesday group has grown from about six to 30 women and Aunty Shas said the reason for this success the “leadership and strength” of its “shining light”, Culture Centre Coordinator Errolyn Strang. 

As part of Errolyn’s program, the women take part in cultural activities – they dance, weave, make Bangalow baskets, clapsticks and emu feather belts.

“We do all of the cultural things that we really enjoy,” Aunty Shas said.

“But I think the most powerful thing about the group is that get to do what our ancestors did, and what's been done for thousands of years – just look after one another and share knowledge and care for one another.”

For Strength Through Sharing, Aunty Shas took on a monumental task. While others were tasked with creating Dreaming story women, she had to envision a mountain.

“We definitely took on the challenge,” Aunty Shas says. 

"I've lived on the mountain for over 40 years. For me, with Djeera, it was really important that we collected resources that grew on the mountain. Casandra, the girl that I worked with, was absolutely brilliant. We just put our heads together and thought: how do you build a mountain? 

“But once we started collecting resources, it came together.”

Djeera is made of cabbage tree leaves, bottle brush, grevillea, cordyline leaves and weaving. Many materials came from the grandmother mountain, which stands 464 metres tall, overlooking the Wollongong coast near the traditional men’s mountain Jumbulla (Mt Kembla). 

Aunty Shas’s sculpture sits on a stump, sourced from Mt Ousley after land clearing to build the new interchange.

“I'm really proud to say that all wasn't lost with the destruction,” Aunty Shas said. 

“This stump actually came from the mountain. It was really important for me that whatever we made, there was that connection there.”

A mountain of leaves is a fragile work of art, and Aunty Shas had to rebuild three times. “Every time we moved, she fell to pieces. And even tomorrow, I'm going to be collecting more durable leaves to replenish her.

“So, she was quite a challenge.” 

But worth every minute. For when Aunty Shas thinks of Djeera, when she walks her tracks and looks over to the ocean, she thinks of connection with country and with ancestors.

“I'm just so proud of Country,” she said.

“Working with all those resources and collecting them, knowing that I'm walking on country where my ancestors walked and lived and gathered – the mountain is so sacred to us all.

“It’s a very, very special part of my heart, the mountain.”

See the show

A celebration of the creativity, culture and connections of the women involved, the Strength Through Sharing exhibition is open to the public at Illawarra Aboriginal Corporation, 4 Wentworth St, Port Kembla from 5–24 November 2026.