The weight of river stones

This conversational chapter reflects on the third performance of the Unbound Collective’s performance cycle, Sovereign Acts III: REFUSE. This iteration was commissioned in 2018 as part of Vitalstatistix Theatre Company’s Climate Century Festival and performed at Yarta Puulti on Kaurna Country. A collective investigation and creative performance installation conceived through the lens of environmental campaigning, grief and refusal. The work examines the symbolic and historical representations of Indigenous sovereignty through protest, the relationship of colonial-settler state political power to the generation of energy, and how these ideas are moved across bodies of water, ports, rivers and oceans. Through the mining of country for use in nuclear fuel cycles, the poisoning of water for warfare and energy, the movement of poison and radioactive ideas across the planet, Indigenous peoples resist. We weave together ideas of Indigenous creative resistance, consider our collective refusal, and seek to honour our countries, the future and the role of Aboriginal women in Caring for Country and environmental justice activism.