A Garigal Welcome to Country, 2022

Michael Glasheen and Leslie McLeod

Mona Vale SLSC

Mick Glasheen has lived and painted on the Northern Beaches for 25 years, capturing the rock art sites, coastal vistas and caves of the Hawkesbury sandstone landscape in drawings and paintings, reflecting and celebrating Indigenous connection to Country through his art and ongoing relationships with many Aboriginal people.

Leslie McLeod is an artist and Cultural Leader from Yuin Country who lives on the Northern Beaches, and seeks to educate the general community in Indigenous practices, sharing his culture through storytelling, dance and art.

The artists engaged with the local Aboriginal community and key stakeholders to develop designs based on the rock engravings of the Elvina Track and other sites in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park.  The designs incorporate shield designs and also figures of marine animals, which is then embedded into the concrete pillars and seating panels through three-dimensional cast moulds.  The shield designs refer to scar trees, where wood for shields had been cut traditionally by Aboriginal people of the area. 

The shield design of the double white cross represents the markings of the traditional Ku-ring-gai peoples, and these markings were painted on their shields, as well as on their bodies. The artists felt that the design was appropriate for the site not only for its connection to local Aboriginal cultural practices, which continue to this day, but also the shape of the shields is similar to the shape of a surfboard.

On 4 June 2022, Council launched the new Mona Vale Surf Life Saving Club.