_{Take your time to explore the connections between the story’s interwoven layers, including an intriguing collection of tools, a photo timeline and large Noongar mural, and personal stories. Photos: bottom left by Marg Robertson; bottom right courtesy of Jill Robertson; others by Wendy Thorn.}

Kodj Gallery

Changing imprints on the land

This beautiful gallery takes you on a journey from a Noongar-Indigenous creation story to reflections on modern farming, tracing the vastly different ways in which local people have been sustained by this land.

Personal experiences, both poignant and comic, are threaded through the layers of this sweeping story of cultural and landscape change:

"Bloody hell, I spent 40 years of my working life knocking down trees and now you want me to plant them again!"

Dick Mathwin, farmer

Intersecting storylines mark the arrival of Elizabeth and Maria – the confronting time when Yoondi’s traditional Noongar way of life meets the European world with its new tools and different ways of living on the land.

The pride of the Gallery’s collection is an authentic kodj, the traditional Noongar axe from which Kojonup and The Kodja Place draw their name; even The Kodja Place building is based on the kodj shape.

Bush animal tracks (koomal, waitch and yonger) are part of the story, and they also lead the way to the Storyplace.