YARNOGRAPHY The Life and Art of MEGAN COPE

It’s week three of another lockdown and for once, I am looking forward to my next Zoom of the day – my interview with Noonuccal, Ngugi and Geonpal artist Megan Cope. From my apartment located in one of the exiled suburbs of Western Sydney, Megan takes me to her childhood in regional Tasmania, where her entertainments were limited: siblings, fishing, hanging out with the chooks and reading the Rolling Stone magazine purchased from the fortunes of her chook egg money. Her family made everything from scratch. This upbringing equipped her with the tools she needed to get through the pandemic, and deeply informs her art, which speaks to her relationships with the environment, and the people who are inseparable to each place.

I ask Megan if there is a starting point for her practice and she answers with survival. Her first development was prescribed by the colonial interpretation of what Aboriginal art should be. She remembers fighting with a teacher as a teenager. The Aboriginal by an elder in Tasmania. It led to a commission by another community-controlled organisation. Megan recalls lifts to the art shop with her stepmother where she had to hand over money meant for art supplies, to go to bottle shop. “In a functional family without those traumas I would have had confidence and autonomy earlier in my practice, but I didn’t respect art or know the power of it, that didn’t come till I was working in the factory painting boomerangs.”