Frankie

(Frankie) #1
that year. I told Euralia I’d love to have lunch. I wanted to keep it
really light and open, because having a daughter come out of the
woodwork and start emailing you is one thing, but it’s something
else to meet her face-to-face.

I flew out to Port Moresby with my then-boyfriend, and we met a
woman on the plane who was so helpful – it turned out she knew
Euralia. You have to do things the proper way in Papua New Guinea
and respect the traditional family roles. I met one of my uncles first,
and it was like we were catching up after a couple of months, not
meeting for the first time. We were all in tears. The connection
was very strong and I had this sense of coming home, both to the
country and my family. I ended up meeting Euralia the following
day at a local restaurant. We started talking about cricket, of all
things. It only really hit me afterwards; I can’t really explain it.
I went in open-hearted and didn’t attach too much to it – she was
14 or 15 when she had me; she did what she had to do. I’ve never
had any anger towards her. If she wasn’t ready for anything other
than lunch, that was OK. I wasn’t going to go in with 100 questions.
We got along like she was an old friend.

Going to Papua New Guinea and meeting Euralia was part of
connecting to something much broader than a family. A year later,
I had a daughter of my own, Florizel. Since then, I’ve felt compelled
to delve deeper into my adoption. It slipped into my art practice when
I was introduced to Lisa Waup – an Indigenous artist based in Victoria.
I can’t remember how we discovered we were both adopted, but Lisa
showed me a gorgeous piece that represented both her mothers.
We were in tears five minutes after we met. We stayed in contact,
exchanged stories, and I asked her to join me at an artist residency
I did at the beginning of 2018 in Darwin. I wanted to explore the

journey through an Indigenous lens. I didn’t realise that connecting
to the Country would be such a big thing; that I’d feel it on such a
cellular level.
The residency, Unpeeling Perceptions, gave me an opportunity to
explore and unpack my own feelings. I did a lot of research, visiting
the Papua New Guinea collections at the Museum and Art Gallery
of the Northern Territory, and the Melbourne Museum. I had the
privilege of handling cultural pieces from the Oro Province, which
is where my birth mother is from, and it reignited my interest in
ancestral connection through traditional cultural practices. I also
took a different path in my research by connecting with family
members through an Indigenous medium. Going through the
spiritual way just made more sense to me.
Communication with Euralia petered off after I visited, and I haven’t
been back, though I’d love to go next year. I guess things are in limbo.
Unpacking all that creatively is cathartic; a beautiful way to translate
things emotionally. Everyone’s journey through adoption is different.
For me, learning about art and cultural practices is a big part of
knowing who my blood family is.
One day, Florizel and I were lying together on the couch watching
Kung Fu Panda 2. The main character, a panda, is adopted and
questioning his family connection to his father, a goose. Florizel
asked what it meant to be adopted, because she’d also heard me
talking about my own research. During the months that followed,
several adopted characters came up in films – Superman being
a significant one. Through Florizel’s eyes, Superman, Kung Fu Panda
and my adoptions automatically meant we were superheroes. She’d
ask others if they were adopted, and when the response was no,
she’d pat them on the back and say, “It’s OK.”

Photo


Kelly Judd


pieces of me
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