The Women Who Made the Sea

Roads & Maritime Services, NSW engaged Balarinji to source and work with local Aboriginal stakeholders and artists to develop the sculpture for the Nambucca Heads Service Centre on the State’s north coast. The site is part of the redevelopment of the Pacific Highway and is positioned on the country of the southern Gumbaynggirr people. Working with community-nominated artists Annalisa Wilson, Denise Buchanan and Francine Edwards, and Brisbane sculptor Stephen Newton.

This significant work in steel and granite stone features one of the local Dreamtime creation songlines and tells of two sisters who escaped the unwanted advances of a ‘cheeky man’, creating the sand and the sea of the Mid North Coast as they went before resting in the sky where the ‘Seven Sisters’ or Pleiades constellation is today.