Brydie Lewis

Niina Marni everyone! My name is Brydie and my family and I didn’t grow up in culture as a result of the stolen generation, because of this I struggled with finding my identity a lot and finding out family. I have paler skin than most, however I’m a firm believer that I’m still blak on the inside, and although my mob is up in Adelaide the boandik community here have helped me find myself as well in this journey of mine. 

My Aboriginality comes from my maternal side, we lost my grandma in 2017 from bowel cancer and she used to craft all sorts of things, it was never boring with her. My mob is Kaurna and Peramangk however I was raised down here on Boandik land (4 hours south from Adelaide).

We are still looking for links for our family to this day and it’s really hard and upsetting to find them as we look for the rest of our family. I decided I wanted to change the culture in our household because we weren’t doing anything (mainly because we didn’t know how). I noticed that there was a huge loss in weaving and language as two big ones for me I wanted to focus on them to really bring them to the light. 

So I taught myself, my mother and over 12 other people in my community down here how to weave, I love to experiment with weaving and create lids, handles and more. Along with telling my story through my family and my journey. Each and all of my baskets or earrings are patiently prepared and spiritually cleansed and bring different messages. 

Ngaityalya, Thankyou