Building an Understanding of Grief from an Indigenous Cultural Perspective: Kopi Healing with Maree Clarke, Kerri Clarke and Nicholas Hovington

If you could put your grief into the weight of clay, what would that feel like? In this workshop, you will be able to create a Kopi, a traditional mourning cap that is made out of clay and worn on the head. It is traditionally worn after a loss all day every day, anywhere from a couple of weeks, months or until it falls off your head. This experience of creating and wearing your Kopi will allow you to express and feel the weight of grief. That grief can be anything from losing a loved one, loss of land, language or cultural practices, which are all things to be mourned. Please bring leaves, flowers, ash, or any other natural material to represent your grief on your Kopi.

In this workshop internationally renowned artist, Maree Clarke, will speak about mourning practices of South Eastern Australia. In particular, she will focus on the practice of wearing Kopi mourning caps.

Participants will first listen to a talk and then be guided through a process of experiencing clay headwear (Kopi) to support a deepened understanding of Aboriginal culture and the connections between arts and emotional well-being. The workshop will address ‘Sorry Business’, with the greatest respect.

The Kopi mourning cap represents loss, sorrow and grief. Aboriginal women would cut off their hair, weave a net of emu sinew and place the sinew on their head. They’d then cover it with several layers of gypsum, a white river clay, forming the Kopi. These Kopi could weigh up to 7kg and were a signifier of the wearer being in a state of grief. There is documentation of men also wearing the Kopi mourning cap. Women wore the Kopi from two weeks to six months depending on their relationship to the deceased. At the end of their mourning period the Kopi was taken off and placed on the grave of their deceased loved one.

In this workshop the wearing of the Kopi will be done with respect and reverence for the revitalisation of this mourning practice, within a contemporary context. Men and women are encouraged to attend.