Refugia

in ember and ash / the heart of the Noongar Nation beats buried...’

Refugia is an unparalleled work of vision and political fury from Noongar and Yawuru poet and scholar Elfie Shiosaki. Inspired by the beeliar (Swan River) and the NASA James Webb Space Telescope’s first year of science, this collection draws on colonial archives to contest the occupation of Noongar Country.

As the bicentennial year of the colony of Western Australia approaches, Shiosaki looks to the stars and back to the earth to make sense of memory and the afterlife of imperial violence.