Megan Cope

About the work

Walangala meaning Longwater in the artists’s mother tongue Jandai, is a work to highlight the current toxic relationship between concrete and water.

A tenth of the world’s industrial water sources are depleted by the cement industry, with ¾’s of of that extraction occurring from water stressed environments.

Long water, swamp country, filled in by the expanding colonial project; rendering the earth infertile. Increasing the speed of water flows when it travels across the land – no longer flowing, pooling and seeping into the ancient aquifers and natural depressions.

About the artist

Megan Cope is a Quandamooka woman (North Stradbroke Island) in South East Queensland. Her site-specific sculptural installations, video work, paintings and public art investigate issues relating to identity, the environment and mapping practices. Cope’s work has featured in the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art (2020), The National (2017), and Defying Empire: 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial (2017) and many more. In 2017-19 Cope was the Official Australian War Artist. Her works are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Victoria, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, National Gallery Australia, Musées de la Civilisation: Canada, and more. Her public art commissions include Weelam Ngalut at Monash University, the The Koorie Art Commission, Melbourne Museum and You Are, Here Now at the Australian Catholic University. Megan Cope is a member of Aboriginal art collective proppaNOW. She is represented by Milani Gallery, Brisbane.