Cirrus@Austlit

'The following is a review of the song and accompanying video clip ‘Native Tongue’ by Mojo Juju (Luzuriaga 2018); a queer artist of mixed Indigenous Australian, white Australian and Filipino ethnicities. The song tells of her struggles with this identity in the Australian context and the video clip uses striking imagery to accompany this story. Both the song and the video successfully use elements of hip-hop and Aboriginal corroboree, combined with glitchy effects to communicate a disconnect between the artist and her confusing identity.'

'The site-specific work titled Barrangal Dyara (Skin and Bones) was exhibited in the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney from the 17th of September to the 3rd of October 2016. The artist behind the display, Sydney based Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi man Jonathan Jones (born 1987) is a young contemporary Aboriginal artist who specialises in site-specific works, which discuss the historical uses of locations around Australia. The name Barrangal Dyara means skin and bones in the local Gadigal language, and the work took place on Country with community approval from Gadigal elders Uncle Charles Madden and Uncle Allen Madden.'

'The gatekeepers for institutions of fine arts, classical music and theatre in Australia are traditionally white, upper middle-class people. Nakkiah Lui’s existence and success as an Indigenous playwright is a radical disturbance in this bubble of society as, by nature, stories and storytellers that challenge cultural hegemony will always be political, and Blak artists entering theatre demonstrate a fusion and adaptation of Indigenous oral traditions into Australia’s highbrow society. Aboriginal playwrights and performances have a complex history in terms of audience reception as they often deal with difficult and confronting topics that ‘regular’ theatre audiences may not engage with (Grehan 2010). Not only do they have the burden of representing ‘all’ Aboriginal people, but the stories they share are often those whose voices were historically silenced, erased or dismissed (Morris 1992).'

'Wayne Blair’s 2012, dramatic comedy The Sapphires is an Australian film that discusses a number of important issues for Indigenous people, including the concept of belonging. Blair explores how belonging can exist both within community groups and internally through self-identity. The bones of the film are based on the true story of Laurel Robinson and Lois Peeler, two Indigenous women who toured Vietnam as the original ‘Sapphires’ with a New Zealand Maori band (Herche 2013). Laurel Robinson’s son, Tony Briggs wrote the screenplay and the 2004 musical (of the same name) thus being able to add a sense of authenticity. The film opens up a side of Australian history that has previously been underrepresented but has a universal appeal through its representation of belonging.'

'The Rabbits, written by John Marsden and illustrated by Shaun Tan, is a beautifully designed yet melancholy allegory for the ‘discovery’ and subsequent colonisation of Australia. With its focus on Indigenous Australian history, Marsden has managed to summarise much of the Australian colonisation process in just 229 words. Since it was first published in 1998, the picture book has won multiple awards and continues to be a relevant text, with the issues depicted throughout still significant in Australia’s contemporary social and political spheres.'

'Reclaim Australia is the debut album of hip hop duo A.B. Original that surged the voices and issues of Aboriginal Australia onto the airwaves and into the minds of the public. Fronted by Yorta Yorta man, Briggs (aka Adam Briggs) and Ngarrindjeri man, Trials (aka Daniel Rankine), A.B. Original stands for Always Black Original and their 12-track album released late in 2016 geared up political talks for the upcoming controversies of January 26th, known as Australia Day by some and as Invasion or Survival Day by others.'

'Jasper Jones (2017) is an Australian film adaptation of Craig Silvey’s 2009 novel of the same name. The film is directed by Arrernte woman Rachel Perkins, who founded Blackfella Films in 1992 and has since been heading the initiative to include more Indigenous representation on screen. With an Aboriginal character, Jasper Jones, at the forefront of the story, the film presents a window into the lives of Aboriginal people living in 1960’s white Australia.'

'Ironically, since European colonisation, there has been a deafening silence of Indigenous representation in all forms and at all societal levels. As Stanner asserts, Indigenous people have been written out of history (1967, p. 22), but the disappearance of our First Nations people is not limited to just the encyclopaedias. Australians have long been viewing media and cinema through a white lens, largely representing an Anglo society, and by its binary, neglecting the Indigenous society that – while subjugated to a near nothingness – remains poignant to this nation’s existence. Indigenous filmmaker Warwick Thornton challenges this white lens in Samson & Delilah (2009), in what has been hailed as Australia’s ‘most important film’ (Redwood 2009, p. 27). Thornton’s film encapsulates the post-colonial state of Indigenous society through a perspective that is rarely shown, but is necessary for the nation and, more generally, the world, to understand the ways in which the First Nations people are subordinated on their own land.'

'Peter Carstairs’ 2007 film September is a quiet, intimate contemplation of friendship, coming of age, and ‘the subtle side of racism’ in 1968 Australia (Carstairs in Robertson 2007, p. 16). In the Wheatbelt of Western Australia, Ed Anderson (Xavier Samuel) the son of a wool and wheat farmer, and Paddy Parker (Clearance John Ryan) the son of an Aboriginal labourer on the Andersons’ property, navigate the strains placed on their relationship by complex long-standing prejudices and the changing nature of the Australian political world.'