Cirrus@Austlit

Archie Moore

Archie Moore is a Brisbane based artist, originally from Toowoomba. Moore “was named after Archie Moore, the African American world boxing champion of the 1950s and 1960s”(1). Moore completed his formal education with a Certificate of Art and Design at TAFE, Bachelor of Visual Arts from QUT, as well as studying in Prague from 2001 to 2002 at the Academy of Fine Arts (2). His work engages issues of language, identity, history, and meaning. He works with a range of mediums, including acrylic, sculpture, text, music, and film.

Moore has completed a number of solo and group exhibitions, as well as music collaborations and performances. His recent solo exhibitions include Flag, The Commercial Gallery, Sydney (2012), Mussel, Higure Gallery, Tokyo (2012), 10 Missions From God, Spiro Grace Art Rooms, Brisbane (2012), and his recent group exhibitions include the My Country, I still call Australia Home exhibition at Brisbane’s prestigious Gallery of Modern Art (2013), Experimenta – Speak to me, 5th International Biennale of Media Art, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne (2012), and Lie Of The Land: New Australian Landscape, Australian Embassy, Washington D.C. (2012).

His work has earned him national and international recognition and Moore is a recipient of numerous awards, such as the National Artists' Self Portrait Prize at the University of Queensland Art Museum, the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize (2010), and numerous Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Awards (short-listed 2005 – 2008, & 2011).

Courting Blakness Art Work

When visiting the University of Queensland, Moore noticed the pathway that divides the Great Court in two. Along the pathway runs a series of five light poles that made him think of flagpoles. “Flags are a sign of group identity and allegiance at a base level, but they are also visual signals to others of intent, movement, or call to action, or condition ”(3). Flags are also as a symbol of claiming or conquering a space. Flags often exist in relation to nations and are used to communicate jurisdiction over or within a particular place. As Moore says, “the flag is a site of intersection between history, power relations, constructs of identity, people and place”(4).

For the Courting Blakness installation he has created a series of flags representing some of the nations of the original people of the area known as Queensland. Designed in collaboration with their respective communities Moore’s flags contain features of social and cultural significance; an acknowledgement to people, language, and country. Screen printed flags will hang from existing flagpoles (i.e. from the lamp posts) along the concrete pathway connecting one side of the Great Court to the other, initiating a visual dialogue with the Australian, Queensland, UQ, Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal flags on the Forgan Smith tower.

Flags can be both divisive and inclusive. They are divisive in terms of separating or excluding one group from another. They place boundaries around ‘in’ and ‘out’ groups. At the same time, flags can be a source of unity or commonality; a shared symbol that shapes and sustains identity. Moore claims that the flags will serve as a type of intervention, disrupting commonly held ways of knowing by highlighting that there were (and are) other nations here (5). By placing flags on top of the existing structure of the Great Court, Moore is adding a new layer(s) of meaning - which evokes a response in relation to one’s own identity and sense of place.

(1) www.daao.org.au/bio/archie-moore/biography

(2) http://www.thecommercialgallery.com/uploads/XTFT79J- Archie%20Moore%20cv%20(4).pdf

(3) http://www.thecommercialgallery.com/artist/archie-moore/news

(4) Moore, A., (2013) Courting Blakness Public Lecture, UQ Art Museum.

(5) Moore, A., (2013) Courting Blakness Public Lecture, UQ Art Museum.

Works Cited:

Archiemoore.wordpress.com. Lie Of The Land: New Australian Landscape. Australian Embassy, Washington D.C. (2012). np. 2014. Web 24 Jun. 2014.

Experimenta.org. Experimenta – Speak to me. 5th International Biennale of Media Art, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne (2012). np. 2014. Web 24 Jun. 2014.

Ibhof.com. Archie Moore. np. 2014. 24 Jun. 2014.

Moore, A., (2013) Courting Blakness Public Lecture, UQ Art Museum.

Sgar.com.au. 10 Missions From God. np. 2014. 24 Jun. 2014.

Thecommercialgallery.com. Flag. np. 2014. 24 Jun. 2014.

Tokyoartbeat.com. Mussel. np. 2014. 24 Jun. 2014.

QAGOMA (TV). My Country: I Still Call Australia Home. 1 Jun. 2013. Video. Web. 27 June 2014.

Christian Thompson

A Contemporary Presence - Culture, Identity, and Aboriginality

Christian Thompson’s performance based video Dhagunyilangu (Brother) will welcome visitors to The University of Queensland’s Great Court as part of Courting Blakness, a large-scale art project held between 5-28th of September 2014. Universities are a place of reciprocity, connecting people on a local, national, and international scale. The Great Court, as the social center of the University of Queensland, is a historical thoroughfare, within which an Aboriginal presence has been maintained.

Thompson is an internationally renowned Australian Indigenous artist of Bidjara and British heritage. He has exhibited in many prominent exhibitions, including unDisclosed: 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial, My Country: I Still Call Australia Home, Andy and OZ: Parallel Visions, and Australia at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. From photography and video installation to sculpture, and performance-based works he crosses national and international boundaries in an exploration of the hybrid position of identity in today’s globalised world. Thompson’s practice involves disguising, refashioning, and adorning his body to adopt varying personas that challenge conventional notions of Aboriginality. This shifts the focus of debate from Australian politics of race and injustice towards engaging in a “global conversation with people from all around the world who are dealing with similar histories" (ABC Weekend Arts).

In 2009 Thompson was awarded the inaugural Charlie Perkins scholarship, becoming one of the first of two Aboriginal Australians to study at the University of Oxford. Whilst undertaking a PhD in Fine Arts at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Thompson completed his hauntingly beautiful series We Bury Our Own (2013). Consisting of a set of eight large photographic self-portraits and a video installation, this series, which fuses cultures, practices, and traditions, was made in response to the Australian photographic collection at the Pitt Rivers Museum (Pitt Rivers Museum). This collection, designed to aid anthropological research, largely consists of late-nineteenth century photographs of Aboriginal people. Thompson does not explicitly use these photographs, but instead responds to the histories they represent and his own personal reaction to them. Giving his people a voice in places where they have been previously silenced, We Bury Our Own, exhibited in Trinity College, inscribed contemporary Indigenous presence into the prestigious walls of Oxford University.

Dhagunyilangu (Brother)

In recent years acknowledging the traditional owners of country has become a customary gesture to mark the opening of major cultural and public events in Australia. Through the welcome performance “the non-indigenous, settler or immigrant Australian is identified as a visitor,” becoming, “situated in relation to country and incorporated into an Indigenous system of reciprocity and exchange. (Welcome to Country). Projected onto the university's historical sandstone exterior, Dhagunyilangu combines ancient Aboriginal languages with western opera vocals to create a cross-cultural encounter, challenging preconceptions of how indigenous people embody and perform their cultural heritage.

This is an edited version of an essay by Alice-Anne Psaltis

References

Baum, Tina. “Christian Thompson.” In UnDisclosed: 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial, (ex. cat), edited by Carly Lane and Franchesca Cubillo, 111-113. Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2012.

Bright, Susan. Auto Focus: The self-portrait in contemporary photography. London: Thames & Hudson, 2010.

Dempster, Elizabeth. “Welcome to Country: Performing Rights and the Pedagogy of Place.” About Performance 7 (2007): 87-97.

Forrest, Nicholas. “Aboriginal Artist Christian Thompson Digs Oxford University.” Blouin Artinfo, January 30, 2013. Accessed May 6, 2014. http://au.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/862061/aboriginal-artist-christian-thompson-digs-oxford-university

Lighton, Alice. “Indigenous Australians Arrive in Oxford.” The Student Oxford, October 28, 2010. Accessed May 6, 2014. http://oxfordstudent.com/2010/10/28/indigenous-australians-arrive-in-oxford/

Marsh, Anne. Look: Contemporary Australian Photography since 1980. Melbourne: Macmillan Art, 2010.

Mayhew, Sarah. “Self Styled.” Oxford Mail, January 31, 2013. Accessed May 6, 2014. http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/leisure/artandbooks/art/10193663.Self_Styled/?ref=rss

McLean, Brue. My Country, I Still Call Australia Home: Contemporary Art from Black Australia. Brisbane: Queensland Art Gallery, 2013.

Morton, Christopher. “Spiritual repatriation and the archive in Christian Thompson’s We Bury Our Own.” In Christian Thompson: We Bury Our Own (Brisbane: Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, 2012).

Pascoe, Brian D and University of Queensland Media and Information Services, ed. A Guide to the Great Court. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1992.

Pizzi, Gabrielle. “Christian Thompson.” Accessed May 15, 2014. http://www.gabriellepizzi.com.au/artists/gabriellepizzi_christian_thompson.html

Riphagen, Marianne. “Christian Bumbarra Thompson.” In Cultural Warriors: National Indigenous Art Triennial, (ex. cat), edited by Brenda Croft and Barkus Simona, 160-162. Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2007.

Riphagen, Marianne. “Contested Categories: Brook Andrew, Christian Thompson and the Framing of Contemporary Australian Art.” Australian Humanities Review 55 (2013): 93-118.

Speed, Alex. “Artists Christian Thompson’s Body of Work.” The Australian, May 11, 2013.

Thompson, Christian. Interview by Melanie Tait. ABC Weekend Arts. June 29, 2013, http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/weekendarts/christian-thompson/4788196

“Christian Thompson: We Bury Our Own.” Pitt Rivers Museum. Accessed April 20, 2014. http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/christianthompson.html

“Christian Thompson.” Accessed April 15, 2014. http://www.christianthompson.net/index.html

Courting Blakness: Curator Fiona Foley

Courting Blakness is an exciting undertaking that aims to strengthen public knowledge and educate artistic tastes through the display of three newly commissioned artworks and five multi-media projects stationed in the Great Court of The University of Queensland. The message of the al fresco exhibition is of national identity and the Indigenous roots of Australia.

Behind this endeavor is Brisbane-based curator, Fiona Foley. She has been making public art for over twenty years and was awarded the national visual artist of the year for 2013 by the Australia Council.

Having grown up on Fraser Island, Foley studied her craft at the Sydney College of Art. As a photographer, sculptor, printmaker and painter herself, Foley uses her curatorial skills to explore the relationship between Indigenous and colonial pasts of Australia and to consider their reverberations today.

Foley has exhibited her private works frequently in Australia, as well as overseas. 2000 saw Foley’s works displayed in Russia at the Hermitage Museum, encapsulating the collaboration of several key Indigenous artists. She has been featured at the Brooklyn Museum in New York, the October Gallery in London, and the University of South Florida, among other prestigious locations. Trips into rural communities and remote areas of Australia inspire Foley’s style and creative message as she uses culture and art to express her political, social and environmental views.

A well respected and celebrated Australian creative, Foley has imparted a rich clarity and sensitivity to Courting Blakness in UQ’s Great Court. As she explains:

…what I like to do is work with this material and put it out in the public arena and say, “Look at this. How are you engaging with this aspect of our history? For a lot of people it is a huge eye-opener. I see my role really as an educator. Every time I insert into the public realm a work that involves a historical context or underpinning, it really is about educating Queenslanders about their own history,” (MCA).

Edited version of essay by Natasha Norford

References

“Bliss 2006.” Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. Accessed June 5, 2014. https://www.mca.com.au/collection/work/200916/

“Fiona Foley.” Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. Accessed June 5, 2014.

https://www.mca.com.au/collection/artist/foley-fiona/

Morell, Timothy. “Fiona Foley: Collectors Dossier.” Art Collector. Accessed June 3, 2014.

http://www.artcollector.net.au/FionaFoleyCollectorsDossier

“Fiona Foley.” Design and Art Australia Online. Accessed June 3, 2014.

http://www.daao.org.au/bio/fiona-foley/

“Fiona Foley.” Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery. Accessed June 3, 2014.

http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/12/Fiona_Foley/362/

Karla Dickens

At first, Karla Dickens’ video installation Honey and a Bunny might look a little out of place against the time worn friezes of The Great Court at UQ. But when it’s presented alongside other contemporary indigenous artists in Courting Blakness this September the coherence will be clear.

As the location itself does through architecture, the show will explore contrasts, harmonies and personal stories created by the mixture of cultural influences in Australia. But how – one might ask -does the recorded midnight tryst between a drag queen and a large, fluffy, Footy mascot fit into the exhibition? Well, Honey and a Bunny might not be cut from sandstone, but it speaks just as forcefully about personal and national identity as the enduring art of the Great Court.

Characteristic of Dickens’ work, the video focuses heavily on issues relating to her identity as an Aboriginal person, a gay woman, and citizen of South Sydney. This particular mix of minority groups could be expected to exclude some of her audience. However, she succeeds in contextualising very particular characters within the larger scope of Australian society, making the work completely accessible. The shots of Redfern station, infamous for the 2004 race riots (1), change the scene from referencing solely personal experiences of racism to a representation of an entire nation’s experience (1). Likewise, the Rabbitohs as a symbol of cultural identity resonate with a sports crazed country (2), even when the industry’s overly macho culture is gently hinted at.

It is for this quality that Dickens’ work appeals to such a large variety of people; while it stays true to telling unique, personal stories it remains open and inviting, as if eager to include the viewer. As Jeanine Leane discusses in her recent article (3), Dickens has a very positive reaction to the inevitable issue of racism that emerges in her exploration of Aboriginality. She opts for beauty and dignity to reference the dark past of Australia’s history. Leane’s example is the use of the ‘Black Maddona’ (4) as an alternative to negative stereotypes given to aboriginal women by white settlers. The same aesthetic positivity is evident in Honey and a Bunny. An ironically dramatic reproduction of ‘Glory Glory to South Sydney’ provides the audio for a simply shot series of vacation-like stills and videos of Destiny the drag queen and Bunny the mascot strolling around public spaces. The overall feel of the video is certainly light hearted, and we are led to contemplate the possible history, struggles and marginalisation of the characters not through blame or confrontation but through a brief yet sincere and pleasant connection made with them. As an interesting prelude to Courting Blakness, these distinguishing elements to Dickens’ art practice will be shown in a different context until the 18th of July in the exhibition Herby Make Protest (5).

So whatever your cultural heritage, sports team or taste in body glitter, Dickens’ art is a valuable invitation to better understand personal and national histories. Courting Blakness gives it a fitting place within the long history of the Great Court, and celebrates our remarkable indigenous contemporary art scene.

This is an edited version of an essay by Jessica Brodie

Endnotes

1.Liz Jackson, “Riot in Redfern,” (Transcript of interviews for televised report, Four Corners, March 2004), http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2004/s1077026.htm.

2. Richard Cashman, “Sport is Culture, and Nowhere more so than Australia,” The Sydney Morning Herald, November 5, 2003, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/04/1067708214342.html?from=storyrhs.

3. Jeanine Leane, “Karla Dickens: Continuing the Dialogue,” Art And Australia, no. 51.4 (May 2014): 542 - 551.

4. Joseph Sciorra, “The Black Madonna of East Thirteenth Street,” Voices – The Journal of New York Folklore, no. 30, (Spring Summer 2004): 1, http://www.nyfolklore.org/pubs/voic30-1-2/madonna.html.

5. “Herby Make Protest,” http://www.karladickens.com.au/event/hereby-make-protest/

Works Cited

Cashman, Richard. “Sport is Culture, and Nowhere more so than Australia.” The Sydney Morning Herald, November 5, 2003. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/04/1067708214342.html?from=storyrhs.

“Herby Make Protest.”

http://www.karladickens.com.au/event/hereby-make-protest/.

Jackson, L. “Riot in Redfern.” Transcript of interviews for televised report, Four Corners, March 2004. http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2004/s1077026.htm.

Leane, Jeanine. “Karla Dickens: Continuing the Dialogue.” Art and Australia, no. 51.4 (May 2014): 542 - 551.

Sciorra, Joseph. “The Black Madonna of East Thirteenth Street.” Voices – The Journal of New York Folklore, no. 30, (Spring Summer 2004): 1. http://www.nyfolklore.org/pubs/voic30-1-2/madonna.html.

Megan Cope

Megan Cope is a Quandamooka woman from North Stradbroke Island, South East Queensland, and a member of the Brisbane-based Aboriginal Collective proppaNOW. Her work explores issues including identity, environment, power, and prejudice (see for example, Larkin, NewFlames). Over the last six years, Cope has participated in more than 30 group shows and held two solo exhibitions. Outside Australia, Cope’s work has been exhibited at PARAsite Gallery (Hong Kong), the Wellington City Gallery (New Zealand), and as part of the Alex Taylor-curated Lie of the Land: New Australian Landscapes exhibition at the Australian Embassy (Washington DC). In Australia, work includes commissions for the Next Wave Festival 2014, and also “Fluid Terrain,” a major site-specific work for the My Country, I still call Australia Home exhibition at Brisbane’s prestigious Gallery of Modern Art. Work commissioned for public collections includes the Mater Hospital, Moreton Bay Regional Council, Gold Coast University Hospital Art Collection, and the Museum of Brisbane. Cope’s work is also included in the NEWflames Anne Gamble Myer collection.

Courting Blakness Public Art Installation: The Blaktism

An established Indigenous artist, who has participated in at least 34 exhibitions since 2008, Cope suddenly found herself in the position of having to produce a document to provide evidence of her heritage. Exploring the process of applying for an international residency, Cope discovered that a “Certificate of Aboriginality” might be required—a bureaucratic process, requiring the agreement of a Board of Elders and the sanction of a Justice of the Peace. Cope describes the process—designed to “protect” Indigenous artists and eliminate bogus applications—as one which led to an overpowering sense of concern and uncertainty. The application for the Parisian residency was never made. Instead, Cope drew on the experience of self-doubt, and process of certification, to produce The Blaktism. A 7-minute video, commissioned for the 2014 Melbourne New Wave Festival, The Blaktism was acclaimed as one of the “Ten Best Things to See” at the event.

The Blaktism is a satirical response to Cope’s personal experiences of obtaining a “Certificate of Aboriginality” in the context being a “fair-skinned” person, whose appearance challenges stereotypical imaginaries of “Aboriginal Australians.” Through the work, the artist explores the impact of stereotypes and questions issue of cultural authority, citizenship, and prejudice in contemporary Australia. Cope plays a central role in the video, “Blaktised” with the support of a cast of white Australians. During the rite Cope is physically transformed until, shrouded in the Australian flag, the newly -“Blaktised” character joins in a cultural assimilation dance party. The shared celebration, replete with the over-consumption of alcohol, ends with the young Quandamooka woman standing alone in the room. Slowly, looking outwards, she begins the process of cleaning away the traces of the rite that had transformed her into a character which Cope describes as unrecognisable: “almost […] like an Anime character. Just absurd!” Gradually, as the paint and contact lenses are removed, the person beneath trappings of “The Blaktism” is revealed.

Works Cited

After The Flood. Australia: Adric Watson, 2014. Video. Vimeo. Web. 4 Jun. 2014

Awaye! ABC. The Blaktism [Broadcast date 3 May 2014]. Web. 4 Jun. 2014.

Cope, Megan. Nutmegandhoney. Web. 4 Jun. 2014.

The Blaktism (Trailer). Australia: Siân Darling, 2014. Vimeo. Web.

Geczy, Adam, Megan Cope, Richard Bell, Jenny McFarlane, and Tony Albert. “Insurgence at the Museum of Democracy: An Interview.” Art Monthly Australia 266 (2014): 13-15. Informit. Web. 25 May 2014.

Larkin, Steve. “The Blaktism—Race Power and the Conferring of Racial Identities”. Metro Arts Exhibition Program, The Blaktism: Megan Cope. MetroArts. Web. 4 Jun. 2014.

NewFlames.org. Megan Cope. np. 2010. Web. 4 Jun. 2014.

Nextwave.org.au. “Megan Cope | Next Wave.” np. 2014. Web. 4 Jun. 2014.

Northover, Kylie. “Artist Megan Cope Takes A Fresh Look At The Question Of Identity.” The Age 29 Apr. 2014. Web. 4 Jun. 2014.

QAGOMA (TV). “Megan Cope [Artist Interview].” 1 Jun. 2013. Video. Web. 25 May 2014.

—. “My Country: I Still Call Australia Home.” 1 Jun. 2013. Video. Web. 25 May 2014.

—. “Welcome to My Country: I Still Call Australia Home. [Panel Discussion Hetti Perkins, Megan Cope, Michael Cook, and Fiona Foley].” 1 Jun. 2013. Video. Web. 25 May 2014.

Watson, Meg. “The Blaktism [The Ten Best Things to See at Next Wave 2014]”. Concrete Playground. 2014. Web. 4 Jun. 2014.

Michael Cook

The Courting Blakness exhibition explores the issues and concepts of belonging and the Australian identity. It is being held in the Great Court at The University of Queensland, late 2014. The Great Court, situated in the center of the university, is a communal space that evokes contemplation and relaxation, and embodies the Australian spirit of art and the colonial English culture. The buildings surrounding the Great Court are decorated with carvings and sculptures portraying the university’s history and tradition of higher learning, great thinkers and teachers of the past, native Australian flora and fauna, and depictions of Aboriginal customs, and depictions of social life. There are also carvings depicting key moments in the cultural history of Queensland.

Everyone is welcome to enjoy, contemplate and reflect on the work of artists in the Courting Blakness exhibition. The open environment of the Great Court encompasses ideals of community and wholeness while simultaneously exposing the unresolved issues of race, belonging and Australian identity.

Michael Cook’s photographic works construct narrative and challenge visual and historical perspective. Adopted into a white-Australian family who encouraged his Aboriginal Bidjara heritage, Cook’s heritage plays an important role in his art. He explores questions of racial identity stemming from both colonialism and contemporary life. Previous works include symbolism of Australian native flora and fauna as well as depictions of Aborigines dressed in colonial English military uniform from the 1800s. Twisting and challenging ideas of Australian identity through real and imagined scenes of colonial life, Cook successfully evokes contemplation of the issues surrounding Australian identity in a contemporary context.

His work has been collected by major institutions including the National Gallery of Australia, the Gallery of Modern Art and the Sydney Biennale “You Imagine What You Desire”. “Uninhibited” 2011, “Civilised 2012”, and “Majority Rule” 2014 are just a few recently exhibited works. Cook has also won various awards including 2014 Australian Council Greene Street Studio Residency in New York and 2011 Winner of People’s Choice Award in the Western Australian Indigenous Art Awards.

Through My Eyes

The work commissioned for the Courting Blakness exhibition raises questions about social concepts of race and gender and how they have been challenged and reinforced over time. A series of poster versions of photographs portraying 27 Prime Ministers partially superimposed with Indigenous facial features, Through My Eyes exposes his artistic vision of exploring social issues of identity while hinting at the underlying political and economic issues still evident today. Exhibited in the university setting, this work introduces new questions about the global knowledge institutions as cultural spaces of authority and power.

This is an edited version of an essay by Kathryn Halliday

Works cited

McLean, Bruce. Biography. n.a. n.a., 2014. http://www.michaelcook.net.au/ (accessed May 2, 2014).

Pascoe, Brian D. A Guide to the Great Court. Brisbane, QLD: University of Queensland Press, 1992.

An echo of r e a ’s story: Harkin’s poetic imaginings of Poles Apart

As an established Gamilaraay / Wailwan artist based in Sydney, r e a uses photography, multimedia, installation and performance to interpret contemporary Aboriginal life in new and challenging ways (Biography). Connections between memory and photography and between personal experience and political history are central to r e a ’s digital work in her exploration of race, sexuality and gender. Through the visual re-presentation of herself, her own family history, and Aboriginal history more generally, r e a ’s photographic and multimedia work firmly implicates the viewer as the subject of racial discourse. Her work sometimes draws on popular culture, advertising and domestic kitsch as in her upbeat satirical series Look Who’s Calling the Kettle Black (1992) (Look Who's Calling the Kettle Black) or Highly Coloured: My Life is Coloured by my Colour (1994) (Highly Coloured). Other work focuses on indigenous narratives (e.g., gins_leap / dub_speak, 2003-2005) and language (e.g., HEAD ON, 2009).

Poles Apart

r e a ’s solo exhibition Poles Apart (2009; BREENSPACE, Sydney) visualized the lived experiences of past generations of indigenous women and the centrality of collective memory to identity construction and renewal (Poles Apart). In the silent video, r e a enacts the part of a fleeing Aboriginal woman running through a bushfire devastated forest. As viewers, we share in the woman’s traumatic flight as she stumbles, runs, crouches in fear and then resumes her escape from her invisible pursuers. Drawing on her own familial collective memory and the nation-state’s political legitimization of the Stolen Generation, r e a performs the stories of her grandmother and her grandmother’s sister who were forcibly removed from their family under the policies of the Aboriginal Protection Board.

PolesApart was reworked as PolesApart – Tracking for Stop(the)Gap/Mind(the)Gap: International Indigenous Art in Motion in 2011. Presented across a number of contemporary and historical sites in Adelaide and Port Adelaide, this multidisciplinary programme addressed shared histories of dispossession, injustice, inequality and misrepresentation (Stop(the)gap/Mind(the)Gap). Over three summer evenings, PolesApart – Tracking was projected onto the historic red brick walls of the derelict Hart’s Mill in Port Adelaide.

Natalie Harkin’s poetic-prose

It was in this outdoor setting overlooking the river towards Hart’s Mill that Natalie Harkin - a poet and educator of Narungga heritage - first viewed PolesApart – Tracking (Natalie Harkin's Biography). Harkin’s Hart’s Mill Projections (2011) is a lyrical, candid, and profoundly personal poetic response to r e a ’s historical narrative. Voicing her hopes and memories, Harkin’s poetic prose seeks to unify the past (“this river flooded with story carries memory on undercurrents”; “layers of residual voices”) with opportunities for history is live on (“I float on my imaginings to her”; “in search for home”) (Harts Mill Projections).

r e a and Harkin in Courting Blakness

In Courting Blakness, the words of Harkin’s poem Harts Mill Projections will dance to music across the screen of original photographs and be projected onto the soft lavenders and cr e a ms of the Helidon sandstone of the Great Court. Together, this poetic and visual dialogue will stimulate new debates about deeply personal aspectcs of Australian identity, sovereignty and nationhood - a debate that will cross socio-political and cultural boundaries both within the historic gathering space of the Great Court and beyond its confines into the wider Australian community.

Works Cited

Art Gallery of New South Wales. (1994). Highly Coloured: My Life is coloured by my colour. Retrieved on 16th May 2014 from http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/573.1994.a-f/

Australian Centre of the Moving Image. (2006). r e a . Retrieved on 31st March 2014 from http://www.acmi.net.au/2006/artists.acmi/r e a .html

Breenspace. (2009). PolesApart. Retrieved on 31st March 2014 from http://www.breenspace.com/exhibitions/r-e-apolesapart/002.r e a _breenspace_09.jpg

Carver, A. (1996)."Mind, body and soul: Picking up the pieces, Fitting them together, Making Her-story." Art Asia Pacific, 3(2), 68-71.

Cloney, E. (2013). "Everywhere at all times: Bringing the archive into the contemporary." Artlink, 33(2), 62-63.

Design and Art Australia Online (2014). r e a . Retrieved on 31st march 2014 from http://www.daao.org.au/bio/none-r-e-a/biography/?

Foley, F. (2008). "On the power and beauty of political art." Art Monthly Australia, 209, 22-24.

Gellatly, K. (1998). Re-take: Contemporary Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Photography. Retrieved on 16th May 2014 from http://nga.gov.au/retake/brochure.htm

Genocchio, B. (1996). "R e a -constructions: The work of R E A." Eyeline, 32, 18-20.

Genocchio, B. (1997). "R e a -probe." Australian Perspecta 1997 (pp. 51-52). Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Harkin, N. (2013). Harts Mill projections. Retrieved on 31st March 2014 from http://cordite.org.au/poetry/harts-mill-projections/

Harkin, N. (2014). Natalie Harkin. Retrieved on 31st March 2014 from http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/staff/homepage.asp?Name=Natalie.Harkin

Jacket, A. (2013). "Testing ground" Artlink, 33(2), 132-133.

Kelada, O. (2011). "Opening the ‘wild room: An encounter with the national galleries."Artlink, 31(2), 40-43.

Kelada, O. & Clark, M. (2013). "Bodies on the line: Repossession and ‘Talkin’ up’ in Aboriginal women’s art." Artlink, 33(3), 37-41.

Lee, G. (2000). "Picturing: Aboriginal social and solicitical photography." Artlink, 20(1), 45-49.

Neylon, J. (2011). Stop(the)Gap: International Indigenous art in motion Education Resource. Retrieved on 14th May 2014 from http://www.unisa.edu.au/Global/Samstag/Education/SMA_STGEducationResource.pdf

Nicholls, C. (2009). "Histories repeating: Recent work by r e a." Art Monthly Australia, 222, 8-11.

National Gallery of Australia. (1998). Definitions of difference, 1994. Retrieved on 16th May 2014 from http://nga.gov.au/retake/retake_art2/00000023.htm

National Gallery of Australia. (1998). Look who’s calling the kettle black 1992. Retrieved on 16th May 2014 from http://nga.gov.au/retake/retake_art2/fi/0000002b.htm

National Gallery of Australia. (1998). R e a . Retrieved on 16th May 2014 from http://nga.gov.au/retake/artists/00000009.htm

Pascoe, B. D. (Ed.). (1992). A Guide to the Great Court. Brisbane: The University of Queensland Press.

United States Study Centre. (2011). Stop(the)Gap/Mind(the)Gap: International Indigenous art in motion. Retrieved on 14th May 2014 from http://ussc.edu.au.events/StoptheGapMindtheGap-Internaitonal-Indigenous-art-in-motion

White, S. (2011). "Reviews." Artlink, 31(2), 148-149.

UQ's Sandstone Library - Rhyl Hinwood: Great Court Artist

Rhyl Hinwood is a sculptor, an artist who carves Helidon freestone to reveal delicate and detailed artworks. If you take a walk through the Great Court to the outside of the Michie building make sure to look up. All around you in this great space there are intricate carvings, an abundance of information, a celebration of the achievements of staff and graduates of the University and a record of the history of the State of Queensland carved into the walls.

Rhyl was first commissioned in 1976 as the second sculptor for the University of Queensland. Clive Moore suggests that the construction of the Great Court was “a deliberate statement about the nature of the state and the centrality of education” (2011:33). The suburb of St. Lucia itself is situated on a boundary between the lands of the Turrbal and Jagera Aboriginal peoples. The Great Court will host a large-scale Aboriginal art project on the land between the 5-28th of September. This project, Courting Blakness, investigates how Aboriginal representation and history is contextualised into a story with many different perspectives.

Since the time of Rhyl’s initial work, representations of Aboriginal culture have increased immensely, partly due to her interest in and commitment to the inclusion of Indigenous culture in the Great Court.

When gazing up into the faces and sculptures around the Michie building, looking back down you will see two Aboriginal faces. The first is Willie Mackenzie whose Aboriginal name is Gaiarbau. He belonged to the Jinibara people. Inclusion of Willie’s grotesque portrait represents the important role Aboriginal people play in understanding the natural world and how a culture that is so diverse needs to be documented to be preserved and to educate. Rhyl has included the native bee underneath Willie, which is the totem for the Jinibara people and he is carved holding clap sticks as his symbolic element. The second figure is an Aboriginal woman intended to represent all indigenous women and the naked beauty of Mother Earth. Her hands speak to us in Aboriginal sign language; "I hear my people singing and dancing at the corroboree".

Along the arches are carved native Queensland fauna that represent the suburbs of Brisbane named in the local Aboriginal tongue. These include the echidna of Mt Gravatt, the water dragon of Moggill and the long necked tortoise that is Pinkenba. The vehicular entrance to Chancellors Place is framed with nomadic and migratory birds, which are all Queensland’s principal fauna. Rhyl says that the motivation behind the bird arch is how the birds are symbolic of the students who like the birds are migratory and nomadic, travelling overseas to study and moving from state to state after the completion of their studies at UQ.

Including subjects ranging from bush tucker to the diverse fauna that inhabits Queensland, Rhyl also carved the cloister arch on the Michie building, representing the species that Indigenous people used for food, the making of implements and for medicinal purposes. This suite of carvings included the bunya nut, orchid, cycad, banksia, grasstree, lillipilly, mangroves and pandanus tree. Other food sources represented are the giant wood moth, the witchetty grub, ships’ worm and Pipis.

Just by understanding this small survey of native bush tucker and the flora and fauna of Queensland it can be seen that Rhyl has provided UQ with a library carved in stone. This ties back into the theme of Courting Blakness as a driver for the recalibration of knowledge, providing an abundance of information in a subtle way. Thus UQ can thank Willie Mackenzie and the UQ Anthropology museum for providing such detailed and vast information about Aboriginal people and their way of life. Gratitude to Rhyl must also be extended as she proposed and created a visual library full of symbolism and knowledge upon the walls of UQ.

This is an edited version of an essay by Ashley Kerrison

References

Moore, C. 2011, ‘The Forgan Smith Building and the Great Court at the University of Queensland. Investing in the Future’, Crossroads, Vol. 5, Issue 2: UQ Centenary, pp. 19-33.

Rhyl Hinwood’s Website

Winterbotham, L. P., 1957. The Gaiarbau Story: Some native customs and beliefs of the Jinibara tribe as well as those of some of their neighbors in south-east Queensland, Brisbane: Archaeology Branch, Department of Aboriginal and Islanders Advancement.

Ryan Presley and the face of Change:

Iconography and Place

Ryan Presley is a Brisbane-based Marri Ngarr artist currently studying a PhD at Queensland College of Art, Brisbane. His work Change is a sculptural play with words to be installed on the lawn of the University of Queensland’s Great Court. Change, commissioned for the Courting Blakness project, draws from and punctuates Presley’s investigations into currency over the last four years, presenting a range of revised Australian bank notes from the Five Dollar to the Infinite Dollar note on the face of the large-scale text.

These revised bank notes comprise the 2010 Blood Money series which redresses the visual iconography of colonial and modern Australia by inserting Indigenous leaders as the notes’ character theme, re-placing these oft over-looked significant leaders into the public consciousness. Two works from the ‘Blood Money’ series are housed in University of Queensland Art Museum collection, the Ten Dollar Note, commemorating Quandamooka (North Stradbroke Island) woman, poet and civil rights activist Oodgeroo Noonuccal, and the Twenty Dollar Note, commemorating Woloa, a Tasmanian Tommeginne warrior woman who led a resistance against settlers in the late 19th Century (1).

In 2012 Presley and his former gallery Jan Manton, Spring Hill came into the national spotlight with his decision to quit the gallery over the joining of Lucas Grogan. Grogan’s practice appropriated culturally significant designs of Indigenous artists and in Presley’s words “trivialises” the significance of these elements. Showing strong moral courage Presley left the gallery so as to not be complicit in a system which used Indigenous design in such a way (2).

More recently in May 2014 Presley participated in the NextWave festival in Melbourne. In conjunction with the Human Rights Arts & Film Festival he produced the interactive audio-visual work Lesser Gods which reflected on Western iconography, persistent colonial attitudes and the consequences of following directions (3).

Iconography and patriotic sentiments are major themes in Presley’s work. As well as rounding off the Blood Money series, Change calibrates these themes to address the mass-audience of the University. In doing so it literally changes the landscape of the University’s Great Court with the site operating as a contained metaphor of Australia. Different historical layers and life narratives are suggested for the site through his subtle rearrangement of patriotic sentiment and iconography.

Because the bold letters of Change are composed of smaller parts students, visitors and staff will be drawn in to have a closer look, coming face to face with an unfamiliar past. Like the friezes of the Great Court and Forgan Smith building, Change seeks to situate the audience within a larger social picture and political community, opening up and remembering the achievements and tragedies of the past in order to guide the future (4).

By placing unfamiliar icons of Australian history are placed onto the landscape, Presley changes common ideas about and ways of seeing it. His challenge to smooth colonial fictions and revision of concepts of historical agency and raises important questions about “the moral basis of Australia’s wealth” (4) (More on ‘Blood Money’ here.)

This is an edited version of an essay by Jacob Warren.

Endnotes

University of Queensland Art Museum Online Collection, accession numbers 2011.64.01 and 2011.64.02, http://www.artmuseum.uq.edu.au/collection/imu.php?request=display&port=45123&id=5e25&flag=ecatalogue&offset=5&count=default&view=details

Bridget Cormack, “Painter Quits in Row Over Artist”, The Australian, November 2012, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/painter-quits-in-row-over-artist/story-fn9hm1pm-1226524510727#

“Lesser Gods: Ryan Presley”, NextWave Festival, 2014, http://2014.nextwave.org.au/events/lesser-gods/

Brain Pascoe and University of Queensland Media and Information Services, ed, A Guide to the Great Court, 1992

Ryan Presley, interview by Daniel Browning, ABC AWAYE!, June 8, 2013, http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/awaye/the-colour-of-money3a-ryan-presley/4730184

Works Cited

NextWave Festival. Lesser Gods: Ryan Presley. 2014. http://2014.nextwave.org.au/events/lesser-gods/ (accessed May 15, 2014).

Cormack, Bridget. “The Australian.” November 2012. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/painter-quits-in-row-over-artist/story-fn9hm1pm-1226524510727# (accessed May 15, 2014).

Pascoe, Brian D, and University of Queensland Media and Information Services, . A Guide to the Great Court. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1992.

Presley, Ryan, interview by Daniel Browning. The colour of money: Ryan Presley (8 June 2013).

University of Queensland Art Museum. Online Collection, Ryan Presley. 2011. http://www.artmuseum.uq.edu.au/collection/imu.php?request=display&port=45123&id=5e25&flag=ecatalogue&offset=5&count=default&view=details (accessed May 15, 2014).