RAKI NIKAHETIYA
RAKI NIKAHETIYA
…or for as long as we remember.
What does it mean to carry belonging within us?
Objects, sound, and image come together to form a layered environment where memory and place converge. Soil, voices, and fragments of landscape act as carriers of lived experience, tracing connections between identity, displacement, and home. Moving through the work, visitors encounter shifting terrains - both physical and imagined - where personal and collective histories unfold.
At its core are eight individuals whose lives have been shaped by movement, refuge, and settlement. Their stories, shared in their own voices, traverse geographies and generations - from islands and coastlines to cities, deserts, and mountains. Found images and personal artifacts extend these narratives, holding traces of what has been left behind while evoking the persistence of ancestral presence.
Belonging is not presented as fixed or locatable, but as something carried - through memory, sensation, and material. Smell, texture, and sound become repositories of experience, suggesting how histories endure beyond written record. In this way, the work foregrounds the tension between the permanence of land and the transience of human life.
Shaped by experiences of displacement, the practice brings together artisanal processes, photography, and site-responsive approaches to explore how the intimate and the ancestral coexist. It invites a slowed encounter: to listen, to sense, and to reflect on how stories are held, transmitted, and transformed across time and place.
Fremantle Biennale 2025
Supported by the Biennale and Mary Hill
Voice recording: Kim Scott FAHA
Embroidery works are created in collaboration with master artisan Reyas Ali, his wife Reshma Begum, and the team - Kutubuddin Ali, Najim Khan, Sk Akram, Sk Sakil, Abdul Alim, Prasant Pathak, and Nazimul Khan - based in Kolkata, India.
Image: Clo Bullen
With thanks to all eight protagonists and their families.
Eleni Kakulas - John The Baptist, 1926
Eleni Kakulas was born on November 15, 1964, to George (Iraklis) and Katina Kakulas. She grew up in City Beach, surrounded by a strong sense of family, culture, and community.
With a passion for language and culture, Eleni studied at the University of Western Australia (UWA), where she majored in French and Italian. Her studies deepened her appreciation for European traditions, food, and the art of connection - values that would later shape her professional path.
In 1994, Eleni opened Kakulas Sister, a beloved specialty grocer located in Fremantle, just a short walk from where her grandfather once ran a ginger beer stand near the Fremantle train station in 1924. The store quickly became a local institution, known for its warmth, quality, and commitment to community Eleni herself. a reflection of
In 1995, Eleni married Michael Boyd Finn, and together they built a family rooted in love and heritage. They welcomed three children: Lukas in 1999, Athena in 2001, and Joseph in 2007. Today, Eleni continues to live and work in Fremantle, where her life weaves together legacy, family, and the joy of good food shared well.
David Doyle - All Adventures On The Gib
David Doyle is the Executive Director of DADAA, an arts organization dedicated to Arts for Social Change that has been at the forefront of the Australian Arts and Disability movement over the past 30 years.
David has worked across Australia and in an international Arts Development role, in Hong Kong, Kenya, South Africa, and Japan Ireland to extend cultural participation for people with disabilities and mental illness.
David Holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts (ANU), Graduate Diploma of Education (ECU) and is an accredited Partnership Broker through PBAS UK. David was the Editor of Proving the Practice – evidencing the effects of community arts on mental health, he has written widely on Arts and Health practice in Australia.
As an Artsworker throughout the 1990’s David focused on whole regional Community Arts and Cultural Development projects and Disability Arts Festivals with a focus on cultural inclusion. David has driven regional Arts programs since 1991. Major Regional Arts programs David has led in WA are FIVE- State -wide suicide intervention project, Emergence, Esperance, Unhiding, Albany, Trackside Waiting – Bunbury, Northern Exposure – Western Desert.
Yaso Ponnuthurai - A Fresh Pot Of Tea
My grandfather was born in Malaysia and after his higher studies in India, settled in Karainagar (our village in Jaffna). He built Karainagar Hindu College , which was initially a classroom under a tree. Then he entered into politics and made many changes and created his electorate into a economically sustainable town.
I grew up in many cities in Sri lanka, Point Petro, Kandy, Vavuniya, Jaffna town and spent all my holidays in the village. My sweet memories are walking with my grandfather through the paddy fields to go to the temple and singing along. Sometimes we go to the light house/ beach. Meeting many of his constituents on the way and listening to their stories. I suppose this motivated me to become the councillor in Australia and been involved in the community work for more than 40 years; in Sri Lanka and in Australia.
Mary Harrison Hill - We Walked From Cape To Cape
My family heritage is simple. My mother's side were farmers in the Lake District in northern England. They owned the land but worked it. My father's side were builders from Lincolnshire in South East England. Again they owned the building firm. Their name was Bilsby, my before marriage name.
Bilsby still exists as a small village on the coast in Lincolnshire.
Hertier Kasanda - Chicken Stew With Nishima
Heritier Kasanda is a Zambian born man from Congolese lineage. His tribal heritage hails from the Bena-Kaniki province. Heritier migrated to Australia in 2006 with his family.
Kim Scott - I Remember Sleeping In Seaweed
Kim Scott is a novelist and academic. He is of Noongar (South-Western Australian Aboriginal) and Anglo-celtic heritage. Currently Professor of Writing at Curtin University, Western Australia.
Clothilde Bullen - A Place Of Care And Softness
Wardandi (Nyoongar) and Badimaya (Yamatji) curator, writer and advocate Clothilde Bullen has had a thirty year career in the Australian national and wider international arts ecosystem. Specifically a Senior Curator of visual art, Clothilde's practice also encompasses award-winning writing and publications, including a recent AAANZ Award for Best Publication. Clothilde's governance and leadership in the sector spans a range of inclusion on Boards including, until recently, a role as the Chair of the National Association of the Visual Arts (NAVA) Board.
Simone Pirovich - My Camphor Box From Nauru
I was born in New Zealand in 1972. My father was also born in New Zealand, but his parents were originally from Croatia, specifically the Dalmatian coast. They settled in a region of the North Island where many Croatians immigrated during the 1800’s and again in the 1930s and 1940s (my grandparents). These Croatian immigrants were commonly referred to as "Deli’s" (short for Dalmatians).
On my mother’s side, I have Māori heritage through her mother, while her father—like my father's parents—was a Croatian from the Dalmatia region. The Māori had their own nickname for Croatians: "Tarara," a playful reference to the “fast-paced” way they spoke. I come from a proud and rich lineage on both sides of my family, and that heritage is something I carry with great pride.