28-09-2021
Georgia MacGuire: Contemporary Indigenous Artist
Sober and Connected to Country. It was so cool to chat to Georgia MacGuire, or Black Gin, an inspiring artist working with a wide range of materials and practices that reconnect her to traditional craft making, from paperbark to weaving. And working collaboratively with women and community. On challenging days, Georgia would love a drink, but she has some awesome strategies up her sleeve, like painting her toenails sparkly red, treating herself to chilli chocolate, or playing retro 80s music which she saves for these occasions. Georgia has been experiencing incredibly positive results, in particular with managing her ADHD sans booze. In the past, drinking was certainly a part of her identity. She describes how it was a bit of a joke that I was the drunk aunty, and even had earrings that said, ‘drunk aunty’. But now she’s finding incredible strength grounding herself on country, and engaging all her senses while looking for traditional bush foods or submerging her feet in freezing water. She’s finding it really incredibly inspiring to see other high-profile Aboriginal people who have quit booze and are challenging stereotypes, such as Dan Saltan and Barkaa. Her art practice has also really taken off over this time, and she has some exciting projects being completed and shows coming up which we hear more about in this episode. Thanks Georgia, you are a legend!
