aqua nullius: First Nations Water Rights in Australia features over 20 interviews with First Nations people across Australia, exploring their cultural and personal relationships with water.

Published by OFFICE, a non-profit multidisciplinary design and research practice based in Naarm/Melbourne, this publication offers a conceptual exploration of ‘aqua nullius’ by attempting to apply the falsehood of terra nullius to water. Four core themes are unpacked: storytelling, water injustice, First Nations water management, and overturning aqua nullius.

“This book is a body of water. In these pages lies a collection of words, printed on to paper, pooling together here like the confluence of a river. Each stream of vibration carrying meaning, from thoughts, to sounds, to shapes, arriving through their respective Country and the bodies, hearts, blood and mind of each custodian. Each speaker has held this knowledge in relationship to kin and community for thousands and thousands of years in an unbroken stream.” — co-editor Jack Mitchell

Contributors include Alex Bond, Colleen Raven Strangways, Dave Wandin, David Collard, Erin O’Donnell, Hozaus Claire, Jack Mitchell, Jim Everett, Joseph Williams Jungarayi, Josie Douglas, Kazan Brown, Maureen O’Keefe, Melissa Kennedy, Norman Frank Jupurrurla, Oliver Costello, Sophia Pearce, Sue Jackson, Tony Birch, Troy McDonald, Noel Nannup, Virginia Marshall.

Publisher: OFFICE
ISBN: 9780648770275
Dimensions: 23 x 30 cm
Editor: OFFICE, Miriam McGarry, Jack Mitchell