Meme’s legacy
IT would be fair to say that the name Meme McDonald is a name that many people in the Geelong community will be unfamiliar with, unless of course you were well connected to the local arts and culture scene.
However, her fame and recognition spread well beyond just our local region and encompassed writings and artistic art forms that have achieved national recognition at the highest levels and to a plethora of diverse groups.
I didn’t know Meme but some of my close friends were great admirers of both her and her body of work. Meme died late last year suddenly but not unexpectedly.
Researching her works and talking to those who knew her, loved her and worked with her, it struck me just how many ‘Memes’ there are who we never really get to hear about and appreciate their work or its importance.
I don’t know if unsung hero is the right expression but what I do mean is those many people who, quietly and largely out of the public eye, make huge contributions to our lives.
Sometimes it happens on a peripheral level, but often much deeper, and yet even then we are largely unaware of the people that have driven our interest and understanding. Meme was such a person. Kaz Paton — Geelong council’s arts and cultural manager and a lifelong friend of Meme — has been of great assistance in writing this article and my thanks and thoughts go out to her.
Peter McMullin — a former Geelong mayor — told me this story:
“I had known Meme socially for many years and had been aware of her trailblazing life in community arts but didn’t work with her until around 2005 when she talked to me about an idea she wanted to take to the Australia Council for the Arts seeking, triennial funding. Basically, the concept became Connecting Identities around five communities in regional Australia, including Geelong.
The rare feat of achieving triennial funding from the Australia Council behind her, Meme worked with all five communities to develop their individual stories (song lines).
With her extensive experience, trust and relationship with indigenous communities around Australia over her life’s work, she developed Mouth to Mountain for Geelong. Launched in 2006, M to M went on to move an urn of seawater from Barwon Heads to the top of the You Yangs. Thousands of people from all walks of life in the Geelong community were involved in the transportation of the urn — kayakers, horse riders, mothers with prams, cyclists and pedestrians all over a 24-hour period. I will never forget the beauty of the sun rising over Barwon Heads that morning in May when a solemn procession walked from the Bluff to the Bridge with fires burn burning on the beach.” Mouth to Mountain is now an established and iconic event with a new artistic director, Margie Mackay. Margie and Meme had worked together on many events across 25 years of contemporary ceremonial art practice — including M~ M since 2013. Meme was thrilled Margie had taken the role and Margie intends to deeply honour Meme’s legacy as luminary, innovator and visionary, and to joyfully celebrate her heartfelt, epic and extreme art.
In Geelong, Meme’s legacy will always be the Mouth to Mountain but let’s not forget her other skills.
Geelong Libraries CEO, Patti Manolis, remembers meeting Meme at an event in Melbourne where she and co-writer Boori Monty Pryor were special guests.
They were there to talk about books they had written together and specifically My Girragundji, The Binna Binna Man and Maybe Tomor Tomorrow. All highly acclaimed award-award-winning writings that explore in indigenous culture and life, cultura cultural identity and the warmth of belo belonging. Through her work she und underscored the power of story-te story-telling to raise awareness, to increas increase mutual understanding.
I’ll l leave the last words to lifelong fri friend Andrea Hull AO, a former dir director of the Australia Counci Council’s community arts board: “Meme “Meme’s journey as a multi talented a artist has had a profound influence on many lives across Austra Australia. Her choices and concepts h have been courageous and brillian brilliantly delivered to fruition. A true ar artist, a Renaissance Woman who ga gave without question.”
On Sunday family and friends will gather to remember Meme, share stories and walk together on the land she loved and finally lived on. Everyone is welcome to join Joe, Grace and Jonathan from 4pm at The Little Church, 1385 Kyneton-Springhill Rd, Spring Hill, for this ceremony. True to her stylestyle, a procession over the land will be part of o the memorial.