Cirrus@Austlit

'I see him in the art theory section of Powell's Books and look away, surprised that I’m a little nervous. He’s holding a children’s storybook, and I wonder what his family is like, imagining he’s in rush to get home. I start to turn, but he catches my gaze. We hardly spoke over the weekend, but regularly found ourselves sitting next to each other at the social practice gathering his MFA students organized. We start talking; I ask him about his lecture and explain that I’m looking for books by Julie Ault and other community artists. He takes me to another aisle, and we chat easily. ...'

'‘Your mouth’ (silver gelatin proof) is the earliest image I have sourced of my grandmother, a proof sheet from the archives of the South Australian Museum in Adelaide in the Cecil J. Hackett Collection. Hackett was a doctor who studied diseases among Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory and my grandmother was one of his subjects. ...'

'Sally drank the coffee too quickly, she realized as she felt the warmth in her throat. It smelt great, the comforting pleasurable aroma followed by the sharp pain. She needed that coffee, though, to wake up quickly as she had been up to the early hours of the morning, chatting to her family and friends and stressing about what to pack. ...'

'Pictured shortly before the uprising of the autonomous State of Bama Land circa 2015, we can see the differing responses to the split, from separate citizen groups at the time. Some burned, some danced, some moved on. They say Bama leaders of the Far North in Queensland were fed up with seeing few of the benefits of the wealth generated in the engine room of the North, which instead were being redirected to the state's population-heavy southeast. ...'

'"Talk about laugh!" Every time I hear this from an aunty or cousin, usually accompanied by a raucous laugh, I know that a hilarious yarn is to follow. My mob use this phrase to precede a funny story. It’s not just the content that makes my family's stories funny. It’s the way my mob tells them. The language my cousins use, the accompanying theatrical gestures of my aunties and uncles – the performances that have audiences hypnotised with enjoyment, titillation and laughter. Exuding a natural ability that can outshine the best comedians, they combine a set of perfectly timed ingredients that produce the best type of laughter. The kind that makes your belly ache and your eyes flood with happy tears. ...'

'It was the June July season here in Mindingu the days are always hot and dry. This time of the year, the dry wind blows more frequently throughout the community. The howling winds carry all those dark reddish brown dust through the community, sometimes in small wind pools the winds swirl and spin onto those freshly scented laundry. Washings are always affected during this time of the year, sometimes the dust settles heavily on the fresh washing leaving evidence of red tinges, as if someone had sprinkled heaps of salty plum powder over the washing. ...'

'Evoking a myriad of emotive commentaries through photographic tactile plasticity becomes redundant when relating to Indigenous perceptions. Is my cultural influence pure, am I challenging the myths of a people frozen in time, is the visual narrative a confronting commentary, does the work deconstruct the ideology of an ancient culture evolving in contemporary society? Whilst the physical images conjure a conceptual environment in which primeval connotations are challenged, have I categorised the advancement of civilisation and with that a prescriptive view that isolates, divides and perpetuates the myth of what I am attempting to narrate? ...'

'When my Grandfather was small, he was playing in the rainforest of Far North Queensland on Mamu country. All the little Murri (Aboriginal people from Queensland) children, jumping from rock to rock, chasing each other, filling the dense jungle with their childish squeals of joy, watched by guardians. ...'

'Territorial Encounters is a series that explores the colonisation of South Australia, and more broadly, Australia. These daguerreotype photographs capture the South Australian coastline that was the last area of the Australian Continent that Europeans mapped. On the final completion of the Australian map by the British sailor Matthew Flinders. He laid claim to the entire Australian Continent for the British Empire. Flinders spent much of his time off the Coast of South Australia researching possible places with enough water supply that the British could use to build their colonies in South Australia. ...'