frankie

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