Premiering at Fed Square this week, wurrung dhumbunganjinu is a sound and video work made by Wurundjeri artist and language specialist Brooke Wandin and her collaborators. Through sharing and revitalising woiwurrung, Wandin and her family tell the story of the Birrarung, its place names across Country, and the way it flows.

Wandin holds weekly language classes with members of her family at Coranderrk, sharing language and passing it on to future generations to preserve. The work has been made in collaboration with her family, writing and recording during these conversations in a place that once actively suppressed the language. Through speakers embedded along Birrarung Marr Walk, people walking by will be able to hear a poem in woiwurrung speaking to the Birrarung.

"Actively engaging in the reclamation of language is restorative and regenerative – together they build and shape my identity as wurundjeri woiwurrung bagurrk," she said.

"I am wurundjeri bagurrk, a wurundjeri woman. I am an artist, a woiwurrung language specialist and researcher. I adore weaving and mapping and, recently, I have found both pride and joy in creating sound works containing woiwurrung.

"I am interested in investigating relationships between people and place. I nurture my identity in many ways, through research, teaching, sharing woiwurrung and spending time on Country absorbing all that she provides."

The making of the work follows an extensive research fellowship Wandin conducted to piece back together parts of the woiwurrung language. She poured through records, listened to recordings and spoke with her community to gather and record thousands of lost words into a database.

The work extends onto the Big Screen at Fed Square through a film created by filmmakers Rhian Hinkley and Isaac Winzer. Wandin creates hand drawn maps of the river and its tributaries, using ochre gathered from Coranderrk. In the video work, the ochre map becomes the world of the film through which the viewer travels — along the river and its place names, through plants and water. Accompanied by family recordings of woiwurrung and sound design by Sean Kenihan, the work draws a continuous connection along the river across Country, from Coranderrk to the city.

The artwork, which opened Thursday, is the first in a series of commissions and public programs at Fed Square that explores people's connection to nature in urban environments, to complement the new Test Garden.

The Test Garden is a pop-up garden built adjacent to Fed Square's carpark that demonstrates the naturalistic planting style of Laak Boorndap – the new 18,000 square metre garden being delivered as part of the Melbourne Arts Precinct Transformation.

Wandin said wurrung dhumbunganjinu is a family recording of woiwurrung sharing.

"This sound work rejuvenates our ancient oral tradition and strengthens our undeniable connection to Country," she said.

"Recorded at Coranderrk, a place of attempted assimilation, this is our resistance.

"Language is carried along birrarung from Coranderrk downstream to Fed Square.

"I am in awe of birrarung. She is powerful, durable, yet fragile and sensitive, the veins that pump through Country, the source of creation. She has flowed since the beginning and always will."

Wandin has developed and facilitated a range of cultural educational programs, providing Wurundjeri cultural and historical education for preschool to tertiary students.

She is also one of the Directors of Wandoon Estate Aboriginal Corporation. In 2022, she was the recipient of the Indigenous Victorian Aboriginal Cultural Research Fellowship at the State Library of Victoria.

The work runs to October 2025 in public areas of Fed Square.

The sound installation along The Edge Terrace and Birrarung Marr Walk, running daily between 6am – 11pm, and the video installation plays on the Big Screen each evening between 6pm – 7pm.

The work features woiwurrung speakers Brooke Wandin, Darren Wandin, Kayla Wandin-Collins, Lara Wandin-Collins, Tahlia Tweedie, Olivia Tweedie, Abby Tweedie, and Addison Phyland.

Sean Kenihan did audio production for the work.