Sovereignty Sovereignty 17 December 2016 – 26 March 2017 Curators: Paola Balla & Max Delany

2 3 Foreword Contents Arweet Carolyn Briggs Arweet Carolyn Briggs To be able to welcome people on Country at this Foreword 4 place is an honour, this Yalukit Willam place of the Boon Wurrung peoples. Welcome to country gives a sense of connection for all people that come Max Delany along with us. Sovereignty 7 If you come with integrity, you are respecting the sacred ground that this cultural space is located on, and will be honoured with respect. As an Elder, Paola Balla how we transmit knowledge is important, as are the Sovereignty: ways we create a platform for our youth, in a safe environment. Dance, story, images and song – all Inalienable and intimate 13 have a role to play in knowledge transmission, and can create such an impact. Tony Birch We have been creating art since the beginning of ‘Our red sands dug and sifted’: time. We are continuing an age-old practice; we all have a story, some stories are traumatic, so it is Sovereignty and the act of being 19 especially important to have the opportunity and freedom to celebrate culture for wellbeing. Art can be Kimberley Moulton a healing space, and an opportunity to awaken the world to the impacts upon us, locally and globally. Sovereign art and the colonial canon; It is very exciting to see Sovereignty take place at ACCA, seeing our artists acknowledged in a Are we lost until we are found? 27 contemporary context at a national level. A place of creativity and excellence for Indigenous peoples to produce and present new work, for emerging Artists 35 and established artists, and for young ones to create new opportunities for expression. This is old knowledge in new ways. Checklist 99

Arweet Carolyn Briggs is a Boon Wurrung Elder and Director of the Boon Wurrung Foundation Contributors 108

Acknowledgements 109

Indigenous readers are advised that this book contains the names, words and images of people who have passed away

4 5 Sovereignty Max Delany

ACCA is proud to present Sovereignty, a major exhibition focussing upon contemporary art of First Nations peoples of South East Australia, alongside keynote historical works, to explore culturally and linguistically diverse narratives of self- determination, identity, sovereignty and resistance.

Taking the example of Ngurungaeta (Elder) and Wurundjeri leader William Barak (c.1824–1903) as a model – in particular Barak’s role as an artist, activist, leader, diplomat and translator – the exhibition presents the vibrant and diverse visual art and culture of the continuous and distinct nations, language groups and communities of Victoria’s

Lisa Bellear sovereign, Indigenous peoples. Sovereign Tea 2006 c-type photograph Koorie Heritage Trust Collection Sovereignty brings together new commissions, recent and historical works by over thirty artists, celebrating the continuing vitality, resilience and ingenuity of Indigenous communities and their cultural practices. Developed in collaboration with Paola Balla, a Wemba-Wemba and Gunditjmara artist, writer and curator, Sovereignty is based on a consultative, collaborative curatorial model, and draws upon the knowledge and expertise of an advisory group encompassing elders, artists and community representatives, to assist our aims for the curatorial process to be informed by First Nations communities, knowledge and cultural protocols. In this sense, Sovereignty is conceived as a platform for Indigenous community expression, and is accompanied by an extensive program of talks, forums, screenings, performances, workshops, education programs and events.

Sovereignty is structured around a set of practices and relationships in which art and society, community and family, history and politics are inextricably connected. A diverse range of

6 7 discursive and thematic contexts are elaborated: Faced with a history of illegal invasion and 5 Robbie Thorpe, ‘Sovereignty and Treaty’, Moondani Balluk the celebration and assertion of cultural identity and occupation, frontier conflict, massacre sites and Academic Unit Seminar, Victoria 5 University, Melbourne, 4 resistance; the significance and inter-connectedness what has been referred to as a ‘secret war’ – along November 2016. of Country, people and place; the renewal and re- with the accompanying inter-generational trauma inscription of cultural languages and practices; the associated with ongoing histories of stolen land, 6 On the withdrawal of Indigenous communities importance of matriarchal culture and wisdom; the stolen children, incarceration and deaths in custody, from the ‘Recognise’ process, see also Celeste Liddle, ‘Why dynamic relations between activism and aesthetics; and continuing socio-economic disadvantage – an Constitutional Recognition and a playfulness with language and signs in overwhelming majority of Indigenous communities isn’t necessarily the answer to improving Indigenous rights’, contemporary society. are demanding not constitutional recognition but The Age, 8 February 2016, acknowledgement of their sovereign identity, law and http://www.dailylife.com.au/ news-and-views/dl-opinion/ Sovereignty provides an opportunity to engage 1 ‘Constitutional Recognition’, human rights through treaty. A treaty process would what-constitutional-recognition- with critical historical and contemporary issues Australian Government, serve as a fundamental means of atoning for past isnt-necessarily-the-answer- Department of the Prime to-improving-indigenous- in Australian society. The exhibition takes place Minister and Cabinet, https:// injustices, as a contract for Indigenous communities rights-20160207-gmny8n.html. www.dpmc.gov.au/indigenous- In the State of Victoria, treaty against a backdrop of cultural, political and historical affairs/constitutional-recognition; to consent to the colonial occupation of their land, processes and discussions have debates related to questions of colonialism accessed 20 November 2016. as a recognition of inalienable human rights and commenced with the City of Moreland, City of Melbourne and de-colonisation, constitutional recognition, sovereignty, and as an instrument for reparations and and now the Victorian State sovereignty and treaty. At present, Australia’s federal for First Nations’ socio-economic participation and Government. See Michael Gordon and Fergus Hunter, 6 government is leading ‘a move towards recognising well-being. In short, arguments for sovereignty and ‘Victoria takes historic step towards and aboriginal treaty’, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in treaty are conceived as a peace accord in relation to The Age, 28 May 2016, http:// Australia’s founding document – our Constitution’, 2 See Chris Graham, ‘Recognise past injustices, and to make the nation a fairer place www.theage.com.au/victoria/ with a Referendum Council established to ‘consult Rejected: Historic Meeting of for Indigenous people in a settler colonial society. victoria-takes-historic-step- 500 Black Leaders Unanimously toward-an-aboriginal-treaty- widely throughout Australia’ and to ‘inform a model Opposes Constitutional 20160527-gp5w3g.html. Australia 1 Recognition’, New Matilda, is the only Commonwealth to take to a referendum’ on constitutional change. 8 February 2016, https:// The idea of sovereignty has been articulated in nation that does not have newmatilda.com/2016/02/08/ many ways – political, juridical, ethical, spiritual, a treaty with its Indigenous recognise-rejected-historic- people. See George Williams, For First Nations people, however, the Constitution meeting-500-black-leaders- and in relation to the actuality and assertion of ‘Treaty with Australia’s itself is a compromised, illegitimate document, built unanimously-opposes- human rights, autonomy and agency. In colonial Indigenous people long overdue’, constitutional-recognition/. The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 on the lie and legal fiction of terra nullius. Many in See also ‘Amy McGuire, settler societies, these terms often remain aligned November 2013, http://www.smh. “Recognising”, The Artful Con com.au/comment/treaty-with- the Indigenous community are increasingly opposed that is the Constitutional with colonial discourses, histories and processes. australias-indigenous-people- to the principle of constitutional recognition, reform Debate’, New Matilda, As celebrated author and catalogue essayist Tony long-overdue-20131112-2xeel. 12 December 2014, https:// html rejecting the idea of seeking recognition from white newmatilda.com/2014/12/12/ Birch notes in this publication: ‘Conversely, within Australia within an imposed colonial framework, recognising-artful-con- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, 7 Tony Birch, ‘‘Our red sands dug constitutional-reform-debate/ and sifted’: Sovereignty and the one that impinges upon Indigenous sovereignty.2 Sovereignty is a reflection of a reality that people, act of being’, p.17 Not wanting to ‘tinker with white man’s constitution’, custom and Country are inextricably linked, 7 as Dhudhuroa Elder and Traditional Owner Gary 3 Gary Murray, ‘Constitutional regardless of the impositions of colonisation.’ Murray has put it,3 First Nations Australians are recognition, treaty, sovereignty and self-determination’, instead seeking recognition ‘as sovereign people’ Melbourne Conversations, These questions lie at the heart of First Nations’ through a process of negotiation between parties Melbourne Town Hall, cultural practices, and inform the context of an Melbourne, 1 June 2016. leading to a settlement or treaty. As Nayuka Gorrie exhibition that seeks to provide a dedicated space has stated: ‘A treaty forces you to see me as an 4 Nayuka Gorrie, ‘Indigenous for First Nations artists to practice and flourish equal, with a separate identity, history and culture constitutional recognition: and for European and settler Australians to learn One woman’s powerful call that has existed for tens of thousands of years. for a treaty’, Lateline, ABC, 1 to tread more carefully and respectfully, with a June 2016, http://www.abc.net. Recognition forces me to ask to be seen by you in a au/news/2016-04-27/nayuka- greater knowledge and appreciation of Indigenous colonial system that I don’t want to legitimise.’4 gorrie’s-call-for-an-indigenous- sovereignty, history and contemporary art and treaty/7363280 cultural practices.

8 9 The recognition of sovereignty presents 8 Ivan Muñiz-Reed, ‘Thoughts on curatorial practices in the constructive challenges and creative possibilities decolonial turn’, Broadsheet, vol.45, no.2, 2016, p.16, available for curatorial practice. As Ivan Muñiz-Reed has at: http://www.cacsa.org.au/ recently written, ‘... a decolonial curatorial practice Wordpress/yoo_bigeasy_demo_ package_wp/wp-content/uploads/ would advocate for an epistemic disobedience, Broadsheet/2016/45_2/45_2_ replacing or complimenting Eurocentric discourses Reed.pdf and categories with alternative perspectives’.8 Such a practice involves questioning traditional relationships between institutional actors and cultural community participants – encouraging new voices, histories and perspectives, and a shift from authorial, institutional modes of exhibition- making towards more self-critical, consultative and collective models of curatorial practice and knowledge production. Acknowledging the challenge of developing a devolved, collective, collaborative curatorial process, Sovereignty might be seen as a first step for ACCA in a longer-term project to establish an enduring engagement with First Nation artists, their cultural practices and creative communities. Bruce McGuinness Black Fire 1972 (still) 16mm film, sound 23:58 mins Courtesy Kelli McGuinness

10 11 Sovereignty: Inalienable and intimate Paola Balla

Sovereignty itself is an inalienable, innate and intimate right; its expression can be found buried within artistic works, gently emerging from inherited practices, or boldly spelled out in new artistic forms adorned with confident lines, camouflage, electric lights and bling.

The sovereignty of Indigenous peoples is being asserted in a cultural revolution of Indigenous activism, action and voice. This is happening now, across South East Australia, in the calls for treaty and in the increasingly prominent role of art and activism by Victorian Aboriginal Peoples. These actions can be Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance (WAR) considered expressions of sovereignty itself – we see Lest we forget the frontier wars 2016 synthetic polymer paint on calico evolutions and revolutions in the call and response of 113.5 x 213.0 cm hip-hop artist Briggs’ Bad Apples 2012 and Sheplife Courtesy the artists 2014, and in new spaces of political resistance through video and performative public interventions.

In this charge we see incredible courage and leadership by Victorian Aboriginal women. Professor Tracey Bunda describes the ways in which Aboriginal women speak back to white Australia through art Briggs 2014 and activism by naming trauma as a ‘disruption of Courtesy Golden Era Records artistic terra nullius’. 1 The repeated action of shutting down of the city by WAR – Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance – is such an act of courage and defiance, standing up for the rights of community self- 1 Paola Balla and Tracey Bunda, Disrupting artistic terra nullius, determination and protection of Aboriginal children the ways in which Aboriginal in detention. The particular leadership of Meriki Onus women artists and activists speak back to colonial Australia and her sister Arika Waulu continues the formidable through art, PhD creative thesis struggles and legacy of their matriarchal precursors: proposal development, Victoria University, Melbourne, 2016. their mother Marge Thorpe, grandmother Aunty Alma Thorpe and great-grandmother Aunty Edna Brown.

Aboriginal women continue to be marginalised and subjected to various forms of violence, both historical and contemporary. Despite being at the

12 13 forefront of political, social and cultural resistance, To be sovereign is in fact to act with love and our knowledge and practices are often omitted and resistance simultaneously. Uncle Banjo Clarke, the rendered invisible in colonial academic, art and late Gunditjmara statesman, said we must ‘fight 2 Banjo Clarke, Gunditjmara 2 cultural institutions and public life. It is critical that hate with love.’ If there is a thread that connects Elder, exhibition text, Koorie Voices, Bunjilaka Aboriginal this omission be addressed by situating Aboriginal all the artists across the wide diversity of practices Cultural Centre, Melbourne women’s contributions to practices of survival in art, represented in Sovereignty it is this deep love for Museum, 2012. academia and public spaces. Bronwyn Razem family, for truth telling and for beauty. Eel trap with emu feathers 2013 flax, emu feathers Within Sovereignty, we see a matriarchal space and 120.0 x 30.0 cm As mob we proclaim our ‘sovereignty never the work of women woven throughout the narrative Courtesy the artist ceded’, at rally after rally, at ceremonies and of the exhibition, from the depiction of events in acknowledgements, in open and closed forums Marlene Gilson’s history paintings of Batman’s where the personal and political merge. In ‘treaty’ with the Wurundjeri of the Kulin Nation, and considering the social, cultural and historical her moving depiction of the public execution of implications of being sovereign people, we also Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner, to Megan experience our place and place-making being Cope’s inverted protest placards in which she constantly under surveillance. In the gallery space subverts the explicit and disturbing racism expressed and in cultural institutions, we situate ourselves Yhonnie Scarce by white Australia on a daily basis, particularly Fall Out Baby V 2016 to return the gaze with direct eye contact and a through social and mainstream media. sandblasted glass, acrylic and request that you listen to us deeply – whilst we found hospital crib crib: 82.0 x 81.0 x 43.0 cm attempt at the same time to subvert the process; to Vicki Couzens, Bronwyn Razem, Maree Clarke and 30 bush plums: 12.0 x 5.0 x 5.0 de-colonise and to Indigenise the very places that cm (each, approx.) Glenda Nicholls are artists who demonstrate deep Courtesy of the artist and have represented us through the colonial gaze. THIS IS NO FANTASY + knowledge through finely crafted artistic practices dianne tanzer gallery, that are at once poetic and political. In speaking Melbourne Politics and policies of the colonial state are thrust back to the violence, oppression and subjugation of upon us from birth to death, from hospital wards and Aboriginal women, they make work that is powerful, paper trails that lead from courts and jails, to schools healing and breathtakingly beautiful. So too in the and increasingly universities. Whilst we pay homage work of Yhonnie Scarce, who evokes memory from to our Ancestors – and to thousands of years of life, the magic of glass, shaping it into precarious, fragile knowledge and creativity on our collective Countries forms which poetically record historical events – we are present and future-focussed peoples. both autobiographical and familial, ensuring that her family are never forgotten or lost within the We make and write history every day. From a sound labyrinthine administration of the colonial archive. cart at Radio 3KND, Ganai-Kurnai Elder Uncle Herb Patten challenges us: ‘What kind of Ancestor do 3 Herb Patten, 3KND Radio. In a newly commissioned video mixing live action you want to be?’3 Uncle Herb’s proposition is one of and animation, Destiny Deacon and Virginia Fraser’s Maree Clarke critical self-analysis, asking us to tune in to historical, Something in the air 2016 provokes and prompts River reed necklace with ancestral and current frequencies. In doing so, we cockatoo feathers 2014 consideration of Aboriginal life, personalities and river reed, cockatoo feathers, respond to the Old People, to ghosts, massacre identities, full of irony and joy. The bittersweet beauty waxed thread victims, trauma survivors and those stolen. We 48.0 m in the photographs of the late, great Lisa Bellear also Courtesy the artist and Vivien tune in to the very voice of Country itself, ill from chronicle the everyday courage, love and gathering Anderson Gallery, Melbourne settler exploitation, ecocide and abuse. Whilst inter- of Aboriginal People in Victoria, on the streets, in the generationally traumatised, we are nevertheless parks, celebrating and commemorating life itself and future focussed, responsible for the rights and the extended family of those who have gone before us. wellbeing of our children and grandchildren. First

14 15 Nations artists awaken a sense of responsibility 4 Toni Morrison, ‘Rootedness: Paying respect to these trees, whilst also reminding The Ancestor as Foundation’, in rarely seen in settler art or curatorial work. There is Mari Evans (ed.), Black women us of our own scars, is important memorial work, writers: 1950-1980, Anchor a collective consciousness and obligation, to make Press/Doubleday, New York, honouring the ingenuity and the sacrifices that our work that is, as Toni Morrison wrote, ‘at its thrust, yes, 1984 pp. 334-345. Ancestors and Old Peoples made for our survival. 4 political, but also irrevocably beautiful.’ 5 ‘Aboriginal children represent 20 per cent of all children As both an artist and, in this case, a curator, I am in state care, numbering This critical body of self-analysis is deeply carved around 1700.’ ‘Victorian Child challenged working within the colonial institution, Protection system failing on in the work of sovereign artists – in defiance of ‘Stolen Generations’ principle’, because I have a cultural and political responsibility genocidal policies we are provoked into action. It is Commission for Children and to speak back whilst collaborating with non- Young People, Victorian State also evident in the teachings of our Old People, in Government, media release, Indigenous practitioners. This is done whilst the matriarchs who whisper to us to ‘tell the truth’. 11 October 2016, http://www. developing an evolving language and practice ccyp.vic.gov.au/aboutus/news/ The seeds of self-analysis also grow from the love cp-system-failing-stolen-gen- that is also anti-colonial, responsive and resistant and the intimate suffering writ large by so many principle-mr.htm in ‘talkin’ up to the white cube’ to paraphrase 7 Aileen Moreton-Robinson, of our women continuing to suffer male violence Professor Aileen Moreton Robinson.7 Talkin’ Up to the White 6 Judy Atkinson, Trauma Trails, Woman: Aboriginal Women and child removal that is increasing in Victoria as Recreating Song Lines: The and Feminism, University of Transgenerational Effects Queensland Press, St. Lucia, we speak, with around 1700 Aboriginal children in of Trauma in Indigenous So, it is in this place, as a sovereign Wemba-Wemba 2000. state care.5 The damage done to future Indigenous Australia, Spinifex Press, North and Gunditjmara woman, that I converse with Melbourne, 2002. Peoples through ‘trauma trails’,6 as articulated by Sovereignty, with ACCA and with these sovereign Professor Judy Atkinson, will drag long and painfully artists. Each is articulate in their own languages, into the future, where art beckons as a healing place with vocabularies that are cultural, de-colonised, for that which remains unspoken and unresolved. de-colonising, and regenerative. This conversation involves healing works that speak to history; and The work of Peter Waples-Crowe also speaks of grief, rigorous, challenging conceptual works that speak to loss and love. His imagery – composed of paint, the present. It is, above all, a conversation founded collage and text – speaks loudly and proudly of queer upon honest, moving and irrevocably beautiful art. identity, intersectionality, and the state of being ‘mixed’, at once insider and outsider. The layered The artists represented in Sovereignty demonstrate nature of his collage paintings activate a space akin intimate knowledge and understanding of self, to that in which LGBTQI First Nations mobs animate Country and place in a vital, diverse and intersec- questions of gender, knowledge and self, beyond tional way. In Dark Emu, Bruce Pascoe writes of the binary understandings of mind-body paradigms. the deep knowledge embedded within practice and These are works of nuance and complexity; Country, of people creating patterns and making 8 Bruce Pascoe, Dark Emu, challenging the voices that silence whilst celebrating marks that not only endure coloniality and genocide, Black Seeds: agriculture or those voices that are otherwise silenced. Colour, but prompt re-creation, re-inscription and a return to accident?, Magabala Books Aboriginal Corporation, 8 history and pop, sex and love, danger and beauty practices of healing. Broome, 2014. are layered in complex commentaries on capitalism, religion and rejecting conformity. Sovereignty is a space in which to consider this endurance and resistance: a space for culture, Respected Gunditjmara Elder Uncle Jim Berg’s beauty, truth and love – one in which history and intimate and emotive photographic series Silent the future are bound together, where us mob are Peter Waples-Crowe Witness 2005 gives poetic voice to the silenced Bowie 2015 always, forever stating that we are ever present, synthetic polymer paint, felt tip and repressed, the surviving scar trees which mark markers, carbon transfer and articulating survival through old and new work, Country, and which remain as witnesses to the collage in our own languages, as a call and response to a 29.5 x 21.0 cm ecocide and genocide committed on our lands. Courtesy the artist devolving western world.

16 17 ‘Our red sands dug and sifted’: Sovereignty and the act of being Tony Birch

In a society stuck within a colonial mindset constructed on the denial of its own true existence, let alone the autonomy and authority of Indigenous nations across Australia, Sovereignty is a word and concept beyond understanding. Conversely, within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, sovereignty is a reflection of a reality that people, custom and Country are inextricably linked, regardless of the impositions of colonisation. To borrow a phrase used by the revered Palestinian thinker Edward Said, the Indigenous artist ‘speaks truth to power’ simply by the fact of his or her existence. It is clear that

Maree Clarke the power of presence unnerves some in white Born of the Land 2014 (still) Australia. The autonomous Indigenous body, video installation: video, particle board, sand, tree branches, plaster bandage, plaster within a colonial ideology, should not be. A society dimensions variable video duration: 1:48 mins built on the fragility of Indigenous extinction video production: SW Productions (or at best, total pacification) remains haunted, Courtesy the artist and Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne and not by a ghost of the past, but the spectre of the present. Simply put, what the concept of Sovereignty confronts is that we, as Indigenous people, should not be here.

The haunting of a colonial fantasy began soon after the British occupation of Indigenous Country. A striking documented example of this psychosis occurred in the early 1840s. It struck one William Adeney, an early Melbourne ‘pioneer’ while peering out of the window of his salubrious city address one morning; ‘peep[ing] between the blind and window to see how the day looked out of doors’. Unfortunately, Adeney was shocked to see, not such a perfect day, but what he described as the ‘horrible black face’ of an Indigenous woman looking back at him, returning the colonial male gaze, demanding recognition of her

18 19 sovereign being by her very presence. While legal deception of terra nullius is a society adrift. a variety of weapons of dispossession were, It is also a society that must abrogate any claim and continue to be utilised against Indigenous to authority in a legal, moral and ethical sense if it people, including forms of violence, cultural is ever to be free of its own limitations. Sovereign destruction and secrecy, the colonial project of rights cannot be granted to Indigenous people by dispossession and legal disenfranchisement has colonial society, as sovereignty, never ceded, flows failed. The works of artists in this exhibition are through all aspects of Indigenous life; Country, testament to this failure. nations, ecology, kinship systems, family, the body, the heart and mind. Vicki Couzens, in a commentary on her The Stony Vicki Couzens Prangawan pootpakyooyano Rises Project 2010, reminds us that the history yoowa 2010 Sovereignty, from a perspective of Indigenous life, is possum skin cloak and damage of colonisation in Australia has 150.0 x 110.0 cm also immersed in lore. It is an embodied experience, resulted in ‘missing pieces, gaping wounds in the Courtesy the artist at times literally transcribed on and within the body. body of our cultural knowledge, traditions and It is not surprising, therefore, that Indigenous artists practices.’ And yet, supported by strength and often use the physical body to address the concept tenacity within Indigenous nations, families and of Country and interconnection. Maree Clarke is such communities, ‘we have regained the freedom, an artist. For her, the blood, skin, muscle and bone our birthright to to reclaim, regenerate, revitalise that sculpts our physical presence is inseparable and remember who we are and where we come from the earth from which we are born; for Clarke, from.’ Couzens is an artist creatively driven by the ‘our red sands dug and sifted’, reveal a vital truth. Her richness of regeneration, including the necessary work Born of the Land 2014 deals with grief and pays custom of mourning the dead, which is itself the respect to the mourning processes of Indigenous women from the Murray River region, as well as first step towards a revitalised or new life. This is ‘women from other mobs’. The power of Clarke’s work evident in the poignancy conveyed in a collection Vicki Couzens is evident in its ability to recognise, with due dignity, of small possum-skin bags that Couzens has Walooyt 2010 the losses that women have experienced, while also made. They commemorate the history and 8 possum fur pouches 18.0 x 15.0 x 8.0 cm (each, celebrating the potential for re-emergence, the re- custom of family members carrying the ashes of approx.) birth of Indigenous life. Within the violent history of a deceased family member around their necks Courtesy the artist the attempted colonisation of Indigenous people and Kent Morris in such a bag. Through the act of recognition, Country in Australia, no group of people have suffered Barkindji (Broken Hill) –­ White Couzens ensures that we remember our dead Plumed Honeyeater 2016 greater human rights abuses than Indigenous women; archival print on rag paper while giving life to memory. 100.0 x 150.0 cm having had their lives, their children, their bodies – Courtesy the artist and Vivien STOLEN. The sadness of this story, conveyed in Born Anderson Gallery, Melbourne Similarly, other artists in the exhibition present of the Land is not though a story of loss alone. Clarke Kent Morris work that documents, memorialises and bears juxtaposes commemoration and mourning with the Boonwurrung (St Kilda) –­ Noisy Miner 2016 witness to the courage Couzens both speaks enactment of Indigenous women’s empowerment. archival print on rag paper of and presents in her work. The artists also She reveals, celebrates and reclaims fertility – for 100.0 x 150.0 cm Courtesy the artist and Vivien interrogate, in varied ways, the limitations of women – free of the coloniser, free of violence, Anderson Gallery, Melbourne sovereignty, as a legal and political concept framed speaking of and for itself. Kent Morris by a colonial society incapable of addressing Barkindji (Broken Hill) – Mallee Ringneck 2016 its depth of meaning and cultural resonance of ‘Wherever I go, I walk a lot. I look and I listen’ archival print on rag paper the concept as it is understood and practiced by Discussing motivational factors informing his 100.0 x 150.0 cm Courtesy the artist and Vivien Indigenous people. Any society erected on the photographic series Cultural Reflections – Up Anderson Gallery, Melbourne

20 21 Above 2016, Kent Morris has commented, ‘almost objects, reconstituted them, and produced a powerful everyday I wake up, I see another story of Indigenous statement of the recognition and formal presence culture being questioned, marginalised, invalidated, of Indigenous women. Not unlike the Wathaurong ignored or expected to succumb to the colonial women, she is giving us something a great value. It is mindset.’ In response to this attempt to dispossess both a generous gift and a statement of her strength. and colonise Indigenous culture, Morris makes art that ‘[tries] to carve out a cultural space … to Lucy Williams-Connelly and Brian Martin, both give form to that which is often unseen.’ Guided producing drawings of Indigenous life and Country, by this economy of thought and language, Morris do not so much reveal the ‘unseen’, but see and Brian Martin Methexical Countryscape articulates a key driving force behind the production engage with Country in revealing and dynamic ways. Wiradjuri #1 2 011 charcoal on paper of a great deal of Indigenous art. The ‘carving out’ The ensemble work produced by Williams-Connelly 209.0 x 146.0 cm of space is an act of physically, creatively and expresses a dual quality. Each drawing contains Courtesy the artist and William spiritually giving recognition to the connection unique and infinite layers of engagement. Each Mora Galleries, Melbourne between self, community and Country. Additionally, drawing reflects an aspect of Country charged with ‘to give form to that which is often unseen’ is both meaning (although presentation is subtle and initially the act of creating work and witnessing the vitality deceptive). Observed together, the group of drawings of sovereignty, regardless of any impositions of reflect both a collective narrative and endless colonisation. threads, lines of communication, skipping between, within and beneath the surface of each work. Martin’s Glenda Nicholls, in a similar manner to Kent Morris, charcoal drawings of trees and the Country in which draws our attention and focus to the sovereign they are embedded (Methexical Countryscapes 2016) authority of women in the creation of a group of utilise a different technical approach to Williams- Brian Martin Methexical Countryscape works, woven from a range of eclectic materials, both Connelly while producing, to some degree, a similar Paakantyi #12 2016 familiar and foreign. Her cloaks include ‘jute string, outcome. Martin’s trees at first appear to be singularly charcoal on paper 209.0 x 146.0 cm dye, possum skin, wool, velvet, [a] sixpence coin, powerful (and they are). These trees are truly mighty Courtesy the artist and William silver chain, padlock, mussel shell, quandong seeds, in stature and significance. But they are also reliant Mora Galleries, Melbourne mirror, glass, silver crucifix [and] emu feathers.’ The on and integrated into the Country securing them. symmetry between the autonomy and authority of They are connected to air, soil, water and rock. They Indigenous women and the colonial trickster should communicate with plant and animal species. They not be lost on us. Few people in Victoria would know also communicate, record and remember human that when John Batman arrived on Indigenous land experience. To be in the presence of one of Martin’s in 1835, he came ashore on Wathaurong Country. The trees is to begin the lifelong journey of coming to first Indigenous people he met were a large group an understanding of connectivity. of women and their children, surveying, walking on and working with Country. Batman attempted to Of other works in exhibition none bear witness to engage and pacify the women with the usual array the connection to Country more so that Jim Berg’s Lucy Williams-Connelly of trinkets, including mirrors and beads. The women Four kangaroos 2016 scar tree photographs. Silent Witness – A window would have none of Batman’s sleight-of-hand. They hot poker drawing on custom to the past 2005 is both an act of documentation board presented him with goods of more significant cultural 21.5 x 35.0 cm and creation. Uncle Jim’s project is also an act of and material value, including a tarnuk (a water Courtesy the artist collaboration, between Jim’s heart and eye and those bowl carved from eucalypt). Through this exchange Lucy Williams-Connelly who originally carved out a space on the trees that Man with spear 2016 they were indicating their sovereign authority to hot poker drawing on custom he photographed. The trees are scarred in a multitude an alien traveller. Glenda Nicholls has cleverly board of ways, both physical and metaphysical. The trees 30.0 x 31.0 cm integrated pre and post-Invasion materials and Courtesy the artist are also inscribed with the stories of autonomous

22 23 Indigenous life and the legacies of colonisation. sometimes taken over the streets of Melbourne, and The practice of removing the bark from trees is one other cities across Australia, to give voice to, and of technical, cultural and ecological skill. It is also a demand action to recognise and protect the human practice of respect for Country. Uncle Jim reminds us rights of Indigenous people. WAR have been at the that ‘these scarred Trees are a testimonial to the skills forefront of actions concerning the Commonwealth’s of the People who harvested the canoes, coolamons ‘Intervention’ into the Northern Territory, the forced and shields without taking the life of the tree.’ Scar closure of Indigenous communities in Western trees, for Jim Berg are also ‘a window to the past. Australia and the shocking rates of incarceration They reflect both the spiritual uplifting presence of of Indigenous people in Australia, underpinned the traditional owners and the often chilling events by a culture of state violence. Their banners, that happened after mish times.’ media presentations and ephemera are not mere artefacts of protest. They are a contemporary The repeated vandalism, desecration and destruction version of cultural documentation, performance of scar trees across Australia must be understood and articulation of Indigenous autonomy. WAR as a colonial tradition. A scar tree, as with ‘rock-art’, also follow in the footsteps of more recent is evidence of Indigenous agricultural practice and traditions, evident from the 1960s forward, when domestic settlement, destroying the myth of terra Indigenous activists across Australia began to Jim Berg nullius. It is a sad reality, although not surprising, that Silent witness – A window to utilise forms of media to produce creative, political colonial society, in an effort to alleviate its anxiety, the past 2005 and documentary work. This history and practice c-type photograph has destroyed much of the evidence of Indigenous 30.0 x 20.0 cm (image size) is present here in the film works of Bill Onus, and cultural practices that underpin sovereignty, in Courtesy the artist Bruce McGuinness’ Black Fire 1972, and the more order that a fragile lie can be maintained. Jim Berg’s recent digital storytelling project produced by young photographs of scar trees enact a sovereign claim people involved with the Korin Gamadji Institute. Bill Onus posing with of their own. His work offers us a generous and boomerang showing his distinctive style c. mid-1950s sustaining invitation. It is one that cannot be refused: The photographic work of Lisa Bellear has the ability Courtesy Tiriki Onus to bring the self-consciously political, the domestic These scar Trees are a reminder of the past, and everyday, and the self-determining Indigenous and they are linked to all Trees. Take the voice together in the the one remarkable project. Her memory of these scarred Trees with you photographs are an example of the definitive family forever. Share their story with your Family. album, containing images, memories, glimpses and Take too this gift. Close your eyes and hug histories of insiders, outsiders, matriarchs, misfits, a Tree. The heartbeats you hear are your occasional enemies, friends, events, happenings, heartbeat and the heartbeat of the Tree. For a performances, protests, subtle moments, heartbreak brief short moment, you and the Tree are One. and joy. Through the camera lens of Lisa Bellear we In time, you, the Tree, will become as One, as have somehow managed to become who we are. we return to our Spiritual Mother, the Land. Such is the strength of sovereignty. In the words of a Close your eyes and hug a Tree. man of many great words, Briggs (from Bad Apples 2014) ‘sometimes what you get is like a kick to the ‘Sometimes what you get is like a kick to the head’ head.’ It is the truth. And yet, we manage to find a Within contemporary Indigenous society, sovereignty way to stand tall, because like the power of a Briggs is articulated in many ways. Companion pieces track, we always bounce back. We make claims for are often produced between political activism and ourselves. We carve out that space. You know the various forms of media. In recent years Warriors of one. It’s out there. And when we listen it speaks back the Aboriginal Resistance (WAR) have taken to, and to us – ‘always was, always will be.’

24 25 Sovereign art and the colonial canon; Are we lost until we are found? Kimberley Moulton

Sovereignty – my place, my belonging, my body, 1 Yorta Yorta Woka (Yorta Yorta my mind, my blood line to Yorta Yorta Woka1 flow- land). ing through my veins and those who have come 2 Dungalah is commonly known by its colonised name as The before me for over two thousand generations. Murray River.

3 2 Hyllus Maris, ‘ The Spiritual The muddy water of the Dungalah and eucalypt Song Of The Aborigine’, in Kevin smell of home stays with me, within the cells Gilbert (ed.), Inside Black Austra- lia: An Anthology of Aboriginal of my body. When I go back up to the river and Poetry, Penguin, 1988, p. 60. stick my head under the muddy eucalypt waters it takes me back – as I walk forward. It seeps into my body and meets the existing memories, they bind and strengthen, going home is so important.

I have memories that run through me that I have not lived, my country with its energy and aromas William Barak send a wave of familiarity and knowing, when my Untitled (Ceremony) c. 1880-1890s paint, pencil, wash, pigments on paper body touches that water and earth it reconnects 56.5 x 69.3 cm to what is within me. Koorie Heritage Trust Collection My Ancestors, their goodtimes and their fights, my land, my rights.

We live our sovereignty, in body, in existing, as we walk on our own country or another, we live it as we persist to stop the colonial disease that continues to grow. — Hyllus Maris, ‘...I am this Land, and this land is me, I am Australia’3

Our sovereign being as First Peoples manifests in many ways, our existence is the ultimate act. Throughout our invasion history we have never ceded our lands, we have maintained connection even when removed and disenfranchised, this is the strength of how far our roots go down. Our sovereignty beyond the living being has been presented in many ways,

26 27 through rebellions and walk-offs from the missions, cube and government institutions that are driven by to petitions and deputations marching for rights, colonial denial and regulation of First Peoples’ rights? through the power of the pen and creative expression – our voices cannot be ignored. Should we be aiming for a non-colonial or anti- colonial space instead of trying to de-construct The works of William Barak are an example of such the current imposing hold? Looking at de-colonial power, they are legacies which remind us of why practice, Métis artist and academic David Garneau we continue to stand our ground. Recording the states: ‘De-colonial theory may make sense in history of the Kulin people for future generations, places that have actually shed their colonisers but Barak ensured his knowledge was recognised and in New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the USA remembered. Barak was witness to the genocidal what is done in the name of de-colonisation and mission that invaded his country of the early reconciliation is not premised on the restoration settlement of Melbourne. The breakdown of life as he of native land or sovereignty, these words and knew it happened rapidly however his sovereignty activities are smokescreens concealing the and his fight for country only grew. Barak’s works are machinery of assimilation. Reconciliation is an 5 David Garneau, ‘From Colonial Trophy Case to as much an artistic recording of history as they are effort to make settlers more comfortable with their Non-Colonial Keeping acts of defiance against the colonial regime, and in a inherited crimes and privileges.’5 House’, Museums Australasia Conference, 16 May 2016, time when he was not allowed to physically practice https://www.youtube.com/ ceremony he painted them. Through the brushstroke De-colonial theories are continuing to be developed watch?v=eZ0pl0HA5lk and pencil he enacted ceremony, lore and his and practiced by First Peoples from within these 6 Robbie Thorpe, ‘Black GST sovereign authority in front of his oppressors, they spaces, however whether this is a possibility and Camp Sovereignty’ 14 July 2007, http://treatyrepublic.net/ even hung it on their walls. when we do not have formal acknowledgment content/black-gst-and-camp- of sovereignty and a treaty, I am unsure. As sovereignty Our art and creative practices play a crucial role in Krautungalung man of the Gunai Nation Robbie positioning concepts of sovereignty within view and Thorpe states ‘they need to have a treaty; they need vernacular of the broader people of ‘straya’, however to end the war against the Aboriginal people. We a large majority of the nation cannot extend their know we’ve had a war here, but they can’t tell you intellect beyond their own settler sentiment to the what day it ended. That may be the national day understanding of First Peoples’ sovereign rights. this country could celebrate.’6 Aileen Moreton-Robinson describes this position of entitlement: ‘this sense of belonging is as a profound The position of power and privilege within the feeling of attachment. It is derived from ownership contemporary art space presents itself regularly and achievement and is inextricably tied to racialised when attempting to position First Peoples’ art within social status that confers certain privileges: a social its western canon. There is still the undercurrent status that is enhanced by a version of Australian of thought that until the non-indigenous person history that privileges the exploits of white ‘encouraged’ Aboriginal people to paint their land Australians by representing them as the people that through western methods, and to make their sacred made this country what it is today’.4 4 Aileen Morton-Robinson, designs available for sale on board and canvas, that ‘I Still Call Australia Home: Indigenous Belonging and Aboriginal art was ‘undiscovered’. The preference for In the space of the museum and gallery these Place in a Postcolonising the ‘authentic’ Aboriginal aesthetic of the western Society’ in Sara Ahmed, et.al., racialised social and intellectual statuses play out (eds.), Uprootings/Reground- desert or northern art sits within a different category ings: Questions of Home and through the hegemonic western lens of anthropology Migration, Berg Publishers, of contemporary art than that of the south-eastern and Eurocentric art history. How do we assert 2003, p.24. mob. Is Aboriginal art only accepted within the sovereign artistic practice in spaces of the white western canon when it suits a capitalist agenda?

28 29 This notion also conveniently neglects the fact that When thinking about the state of the nation – and our acts of sovereignty – as evidenced through rock the state of museums and galleries within it – is art, body painting, stone formations and cultural sovereign assertion through art and culture only material carved of wood – are part of this practice. possible when we reject the western canon of art These forms do not align with a Eurocentric history? There is strength in challenging the status understanding, which has a limited capacity to quo, rejecting the pattern that our art, bodies and comprehend where this sits within art history. Our culture are only noticed when recognised by the art has been practiced for thousands of years before white centre. We do not need this, our First Peoples’ any ‘master’ picked up a brush. The frustration for ways of being and understanding surpass this, and many First Peoples is that, from my observation, we do not need to be defined within this canon as until a non-Indigenous art historian or curator we can never fit within something that is constructed places First Peoples’ work in an exhibition, writes from our exclusion. about and ‘legitimises’ it as contemporary art, or authenticates it through their ‘expertise’, the artwork It is integral to ask these questions and challenge the and/or cultural material is only then validated within system, and yet I also feel that our art and culture the canon of art history. Considering that cultural has an important place within these spaces. I am 8 Stephen Gilchrist, ‘Indigenising institutions have incredible influence upon the interested in how, as Yamatji curator Stephen Gilchrist curatorial practice’, in Quentin market, and how culture is presented to the broader describes, we make ‘spaces of Indigeneity and not Sprague (ed.), The world is not a 8 foreign land, Ian Potter Museum public, this non-sovereign way of defining art begs only for Indigeneity.’ The critical element is for these of Art, University of Melbourne, the question: are we lost until we are found? art spaces to have First Peoples curating and leading Melbourne, 2014, p.56. the charge for our material, our representation and 9 Faith Wilson, ‘Colonialism’s Although many can move beyond this restricted our art acquisition. As Faith Wilson has noted: ‘It is White Bones’ in Colonial Value Systems And and The white paradigm, I continue to read art historians only by diffusing stereotypes and expectations from Architecture Of of How Pacific Art Is is Valued, 25 July 2015 and critics placing our contemporary works within within the paradigm of the oppressor that an entire https://issuu.com/enjoygallery/ the historic past, questioning whether it fits within shift of consciousness may occur.’9 docs/2015_colonialism_ the contemporary art canon. It is my belief that swhitebones_faithw rejecting these colonial modes of defining art and What do these non-colonial spaces of Indigeneity 10 Léuli Eshraghi, ‘Curating Under Pressure in Settler culture furthers the opportunity for a determined look like? Is it enough for mob to be working in Colonies’, Endless Circulation: Indigenous vision – for our own representation and them? How do we push this further in a climate that Special Lecture Series, TarraWarra Biennial 2016, 29 revolution in these spaces. is increasingly going backwards in relation to First October 2016, Blak Dot Gallery, Peoples’ employment and autonomy in museums Brunswick. This nation is built upon the ideology of ‘discovery’; and galleries? For Samoan and Persian curator Léuli the fallacy of terra nullius, and, again, the ‘discovery’ Eshraghi, ‘Indigenous artistic and curatorial practices of Australia’s First Peoples, and their art, is a are part of ceremonial-political responsibilities that grand myth. First Nations Saulteaux artist Robert view action in the world as restorative in a context Houle writes: ‘Making a radical ideology challenge of climate apocalypse, environmental and socio- to the authority and authenticity of a national cultural decline and economic disarray.’10 identity requires a process of change. Splintered by modernity, anthropological theories that have The self-determined, non-colonial art spaces of First legitimised the economic and cultural supremacy of 7 Robert Houle, in Vision, Peoples are the future – where history, language, the West must be openly questioned; the idea that all Space, Desire: Global first person knowledge, ceremony, cultural making, Perspectives and Cultural creativity of value must be of European provenance Hybridity, National Museum activism and art can all be present. First Peoples is a superiority complex, perhaps one of the most of the American Indian, must drive this, but to achieve within this space, it 7 Smithsonian Institution, demeaning and dysfunctional agents of self-image.’ Washington, 2006, p.123. is important that collaboration with non-indigenous

30 31 people working in partnership is also a part of this journey. These are approaches of non-colonial action, defined by Garneau as being ‘productive work in the recovery and restoration of native language and territories, modes of knowing and being prior to contact. It also recognises adaption as 11 David Garneau, ‘From a fundamental quality of being native. We have the Colonial Trophy Case to right to be contemporary, to adapt, to be indigenous Non-Colonial Keeping 11 House’, Museums Australasia without sacrificing our heritage and country.’ Conference, 16 May 2016, https://www.youtube.com/ Sovereignty is the collaboration between curators, watch?v=eZ0pl0HA5lk Gundjitmara/Wemba-Wemba woman Paola Balla and 12 bell hooks, ‘B. Altars of Sacrifice, Remembering Max Delany, artists and community. It is not just an Basquiat’, in Kymberly N. Pinder exhibition that brings together people that challenge (ed.), Race-ing art history: critical readings in race and art the western canon and evoke their birth rights – it is history, Routledge, New York & a space of First Peoples and of political and cultural London, 2002. p. 341. sovereignty in action. The paintings, photographs, archival records and sculptures included in this exhibition are markers of our sovereign state over Lisa Bellear Land Rights. PAY THE RENT. body, mind and spirit. Parliament House, Melbourne, n.d. c-type photograph bell hooks once said that art works that made a Koorie Heritage Trust Collection difference ‘lingered because, while looking at them, someone was moved, touched, shaken to another place, momentarily born again.’12 The artists, writers and activists that present their works and histories in this show take you to another place, a place of our past and what we live daily as First Peoples. It is my hope through this exhibition that the understanding of our sovereignty – what it is and what it can be – will be born again in the minds of us all.

32 33 Artists

Brook Andrew William Barak Lisa Bellear Jim Berg Briggs Trevor ‘Turbo’ Brown Maree Clarke Megan Cope Amiel Courtin-Wilson and Jack Charles Vicki Couzens Destiny Deacon and Virginia Fraser Marlene Gilson Korin Gamadji Institute Brian Martin Bruce McGuinness Kent Morris Clinton Nain Glenda Nicholls Mandy Nicholson Bill Onus Steaphan Paton Bronwyn Razem Reko Rennie Steven Rhall Yhonnie Scarce Peter Waples-Crowe Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance (WAR) Lucy Williams-Connelly

34 35 William Barak Untitled (Ceremony) William Barak William Barak c. 1880-1890s Shield 1897 Club 1897 paint, pencil, wash, pigments wood wood on paper 94.5 x 12.6 x 6.7 cm 75.0 x 11.2 x 6.1 cm 56.5 x 69.3 cm 36 37 Koorie Heritage Trust Collection Koorie Heritage Trust Collection Koorie Heritage Trust Collection Bill Onus

Bill Onus in doorway of Bill Onus radio broadcast his shop in Belgrave, advocating a Yes vote for The late 1950s 1967 Referendum, 1967 38 Courtesy Tiriki Onus Courtesy Tiriki Onus 39 Marlene Gilson Marlene Gilson Tunnerminnerwait and Land lost, land stolen, treaty Maulboyheenner 2015 2016 synthetic polymer paint on synthetic polymer paint on linen linen 142.5 x 198.5 cm 120.0 x 150.0 cm City of Melbourne Arts & 40 Courtesy the artist Culture Collection 41 Steaphan Paton Steaphan Paton Steaphan Paton The magistrate 2016 Cloaked Combat #3 2013 Cloaked Combat #2 2013 paper, archival glue, (still) (still) oil pastel and synthetic single-channel HDV single-channel HDV polymer paint on canvas 0:32 mins 0:37 mins 128.0 x 160.0 cm Courtesy the artist and Courtesy the artist and Courtesy the artist and 42 Tristian Koenig, Melbourne Tristian Koenig, Melbourne Tristian Koenig, Melbourne 43 Lisa Bellear Welcome to Camp Sovereignty Lisa Bellear 2006 Camp Sovereignty 2006 c-type photograph c-type photograph 44 Koorie Heritage Trust Collection Koorie Heritage Trust Collection 45 Warriors of the Aboriginal Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance (WAR) Resistance (WAR) Resist, revive, decolonise Lest we forget the frontier 2015 wars 2016 synthetic polymer paint on synthetic polymer paint canvas on calico 153.0 x 152.0 cm 113.5 x 213.0 cm 46 Courtesy the artists Courtesy the artists 47 Yhonnie Scarce Strontium 90 2016 (details) sandblasted glass, acrylic and found hospital cribs Courtesy of the artist and THIS IS NO FANTASY + dianne 48 tanzer gallery, Melbourne 49 Glenda Nicholls A woman’s right of passage 2015 3 cloaks: jute string, dye, possum skin, wool, velvet, sixpence coin, silver chain, padlock, mussel shell, quandong seeds, mirror, glass beads, silver crucifix, emu feathers Welcome Cloak: 139.0 x 294.0 cm (spread) Acknowledgement Cloak: 153.0 x 275.0 cm (spread) Elder’s Cloak: 153.0 x 203.0 cm (spread) 50 Courtesy the artist 51 Maree Clarke Born of the Land 2014 (stills) video installation: video, particle board, sand, tree branches, plaster bandage, plaster dimensions variable video duration: 1:48 mins video production: SW Productions Courtesy the artist and 52 Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne 53 Lucy Williams-Connelly Lucy Williams-Connelly Mother and six baby emus Three men and canoe 2016 2016 hot poker drawing on hot poker drawing on custom board custom board 21.5 x 35.0 cm 36.0 x 40.0 cm 54 Courtesy the artist Courtesy the artist 55 Jim Berg Silent witness – A window to the past 2005 c-type photographic prints 30.0 x 20.0 cm (each) 56 Courtesy the artist 57 Vicky Couzens Prangawan pootpakyooyano yoowa Vicky Couzens 2010 Tarnbeere gundidj 2010 possum skin cloak digital print 150.0 x 110.0 cm 84.0 x 59.5 cm 58 Courtesy the artist Courtesy the artist 59 Bronwyn Razem Koomakarrak ngarrapan (new eel basket) 2016 raffia 50.0 x 200.0 x 50.0 cm 60 Courtesy the artist 61 Brian Martin Brian Martin Methexical Countryscape Methexical Countryscape Bundjalung #6 2016 Bundjalung #5 2016 charcoal on paper charcoal on paper 209.0 x 146.0 cm 209.0 x 146.0 cm Collection: The Australian Collection: The Australian 62 Club, Melbourne Club, Melbourne 63 Clinton Nain Water bottle bags 2013-16 plastic bottles, emu eggs, emu feathers, electrical cable, wire, string 91.8 x 47.2 x 38.6 cm 64 Courtesy the artist 65 Mandy Nicholson Mandy Nicholson Dhulin (Goanna) 2006 Mindi the devil snake 2003 synthetic polymer paint synthetic polymer paint on on paper paper, wire 75.0 x 95.0 cm 85.0 x 105.0 cm 66 Courtesy the artist Courtesy the artist 67 Korin Gamadji Institute InDigeneity: Aboriginal young people, storytelling, technology and identity 2014-16 (stills) digital storytelling video workshops, production stills 68 Courtesy Korin Gamadji Institute 69 Destiny Deacon and Virginia Fraser Something in the air 2016 HD video, single channel projection, looped Courtesy the artists and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 70 Sydney 71 Megan Cope Resistance 2013 enamel on cardboard, core flute and timber dimensions variable Courtesy of the artist and THIS IS NO FANTASY + dianne tanzer gallery, 72 Melbourne 73 Brook Andrew The weight of history, the mark of time (sphere) 2015 Brook Andrew coated nylon, fan, LED Black and White: Special 500.0 cm (diameter) Cut 2005 Courtesy the artist Hope and Peace series and Tolarno Galleries, screenprint Melbourne; Roslyn Oxley9, 100.0 x 98.0 cm Sydney; and Galerie Private Collection, Nathalie Obadia, Paris 74 Melbourne and Brussels 75 Kent Morris Kent Morris Boonwurrung (St Kilda) – Boonwurrung (St Kilda) – Rainbow Lorikeet 2016 Magpie 2016 archival print on rag paper archival print on rag paper 100.0 x 150.0 cm 100.0 x 150.0 cm Courtesy the artist and Courtesy the artist and Vivien Anderson Gallery, Vivien Anderson Gallery, 76 Melbourne Melbourne 77 Briggs [Adam Briggs] Sheplife 2012 (stills) Briggs [Adam Briggs] music video Bad Apples 2014 (stills) 3:31 mins music video Oli Sansom (director) 4:11 mins Michelle Grace Hunder Heata & Josh Davis (producer) (directors) Golden Era Records Golden Era Records Courtesy Briggs and Courtesy Briggs and 78 Golden Era Records Golden Era Records 79 Steven Rhall The biggest Aboriginal artwork in Melbourne metro 2014-16 80 Courtesy the artist 81 “Absorbing...confronting...a festival highlight.” - The Age “Absorbing...confronting...a festival highlight.” - The Age “Magnificent.” - InsideFilm “Magnificent.” - InsideFilm - Filmink “An“An unforgettableunforgettable“Absorbing...confronting...a portrait...portrait... extraordinary... extraordinary... festival highlight.” a a must must see” see” - The - AgeFilmink “Magnificent.” - InsideFilm “An unforgettable portrait... extraordinary... a must see” - Filmink

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OFFICIAL SELECTION SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL WINNER AUSTRALIAN JURYJURY PRIZE PRIZE DOCUMENTARYBESTBEST DOCUMENTARYDOCUMENTARYCOMPETITION

OFFICIALOFFICIAL SELECTION SELECTIONWINNER JURY PRIZE SINGAPORESINGAPOREBEST INTERNATIONALINTERNATIONALDOCUMENTARY FILMFILM FESTIVALFESTIVAL

OFFICIAL SELECTION SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL BASTARDY Amiel Courtin-Wilson BASTARDY and Jack Charles A FILM BY AMIEL COURTIN-WILSON Bastardy 2008 A FILM BY AMIEL COURTIN-WILSON colour and black & white Dolby sound BASTARDY 83:00 mins FILM CAMP in association with SCREEN AUSTRALIA, FILM VICTORIA, THE MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL PREMIERE FUND & THE ABC Philippa Campey, Amiel FILM CAMP Ain association FILM with SCREEN BYPresents AUSTRALIA, JACKAMIEL FILM CHARLES VICTORIA, IN A THEFILM MELBOURNE COURTIN-WILSONBY AMIEL COURTIN-WILSON INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL PREMIERE FUND & THE ABC Courtin-Wilson, Lynn- Producer PHILIPPA CAMPEYPresents Producers JACK AMIEL CHARLES COURTIN-WILSON, IN A FILM BY AMIEL LYNN-MAREE COURTIN-WILSON MILBURN & ANDREW DE GROOT Maree Milburn and Andrew EditorsProducer BILL PHILIPPA MURPHY, CAMPEY JACK HUTCHINGS Producers & AMIELRICHARD COURTIN-WILSON, LOWENSTEIN 16mm LYNN-MAREE Cinematographer MILBURN GERMAIN & ANDREW McMICKING DE GROOT de Groot (producers) Editors BILLSound MURPHY, Designer JACK ROBERT HUTCHINGS MacKENZIE & RICHARD Composer LOWENSTEIN STEPHEN BENWELL 16mm Cinematographer Title Music by COCO GERMAIN ROSIE McMICKING Courtesy Amiel Courtin- FILM CAMP in associationSound with84 Designer minutes SCREEN © ROBERT AUSTRALIA, 2008 Film MacKENZIE Camp, FILM Amiel VICTORIA, Composer Courtin-Wilson, THE STEPHEN MELBOURNE Ghost, BENWELL Film INTERNATIONAL Victoria Title and Music Filmfest FILM by COCOLtd FESTIVAL ROSIE PREMIERE FUND & THE ABC Wilson and Film Camp Strong drug use 84 minutes ©Presents 2008 Film JACK Camp, CHARLESbastardydocumentary.com Amiel Courtin-Wilson, IN A FILM BY Ghost,AMIEL Film COURTIN-WILSON Victoria and Filmfest Ltd and coarse 82 Pty Ltd 83Strong drug use Producer PHILIPPA CAMPEY Producers AMIELbastardydocumentary.com COURTIN-WILSON, LYNN-MAREE MILBURN & ANDREW DE GROOT languageand coarse Editors BILL MURPHY, JACK HUTCHINGS & RICHARD LOWENSTEIN 16mm Cinematographer GERMAIN McMICKING language Sound Designer ROBERT MacKENZIE Composer STEPHEN BENWELL Title Music by COCO ROSIE 84 minutes © 2008 Film Camp, Amiel Courtin-Wilson, Ghost, Film Victoria and Filmfest Ltd Strong drug use bastardydocumentary.com and coarse language Bruce McGuinness Black Fire 1972 (stills) 16mm film, sound 23:58 mins 84 Courtesy Kelli McGuinness 85 Reko Rennie

Reko Rennie Always here 2016 dye sublimation on satin banner 490.0 x 140.0 cm Courtesy the artist and 86 blackartprojects, Melbourne 87 Peter Waples-Crowe Soldiers 2015 Peter Waples-Crowe synthetic polymer paint, Gone hunting 2015 felt tip markers, glitter pen synthetic polymer paint, and collage felt tip markers and collage 19.5 x 13.0 cm 30.0 x 22.5 cm 88 Courtesy the artist Courtesy the artist 89 Trevor ‘Turbo’ Brown Spirit daylight owls in Trevor ‘Turbo’ Brown springtime 2009 Jackie Charles 2009 synthetic polymer paint synthetic polymer paint on linen on linen 91.5 x 122.0 cm 122.0 x 91.5 cm Collection of Hans Sip, Collection of Hans Sip, 90 Melbourne Melbourne 91 92 93 94 95 Captions pp. 90-93 Captions pp. 94-95 Warriors of the Aboriginal Warriors of the Aboriginal Korin Gamadji Institute Resistance (WAR) Resistance (WAR) InDigeneity: Aboriginal young Koori kids 2006 Rally against child people, storytelling, technology synthetic polymer paint on detention and torture and identity 2014-16 canvas State Library of Victoria, digital storytelling video 143.0 x 228.0 30 July 2016 workshops, production stills 96 Courtesy the artists Courtesy the artists Courtesy Korin Gamadji Institute 97 List of works Shield 1897 Trevor ‘Turbo’ Brown wood Born 1967, Mildura, Victoria Brook Andrew 94.5 x 12.6 x 6.7 cm Latje Latje Born 1970, Sydney Koorie Heritage Trust Collection Lives and works in Melbourne Wiradjuri Lives and works in Melbourne Jackie Charles 2009 Lisa Bellear synthetic polymer paint on linen Against all odds 2005 Born 1961, Melbourne 122.0 x 91.5 cm Hope and Peace series Minjungbul/Goernpil/Noonuccal Collection of Hans Sip, screenprint Died 2006, Melbourne Melbourne 100.0 x 98.0 cm Private Collection, Melbourne Selected photographs c.1985- Spirit daylight owls in springtime 2006 2009 Black and White: Special Cut 2005 digital images from c-type synthetic polymer paint on linen Hope and Peace series photographs 91.5 x 122.0 cm screenprint Koorie Heritage Trust Collection Collection of Hans Sip, 100.0 x 98.0 cm Melbourne Private Collection, Melbourne Jim Berg Maralinga clock 2015 Born 1938, Melbourne Amiel Courtin-Wilson (Director) inkjet and metallic foil on linen Gunditjmara Elder Born 1979, Melbourne 280.0 x 160.0 x 120.0 cm Lives and works in Melbourne Lives and works in Melbourne Courtesy the artist and Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne; Roslyn Silent witness – A window to the Jack Charles (Actor) Oxley9, Sydney; and Galerie past 2005 Born 1943, Cummeragunja, Nathalie Obadia, Paris and c-type photographic prints Victoria Brussels 30.0 x 20.0 cm (image size) Yorta Yorta Courtesy the artist Lives and works in Melbourne The weight of history, the mark of time (sphere) 2015 Silent witness – A window to the Bastardy 2008 coated nylon, fan, LED past 2005 colour and black & white 500.0 cm (diameter) wallpaper Dolby sound Courtesy the artist and Tolarno Courtesy the artist 83:00 mins Galleries, Melbourne; Roslyn Philippa Campey, Amiel Courtin- Oxley9, Sydney; and Galerie Wilson, Lynn-Maree Milburn and Nathalie Obadia, Paris and Briggs [Adam Briggs] Andrew de Groot (producers) Brussels Born 1980, Shepparton, Victoria Courtesy Amiel Courtin-Wilson Yorta Yorta and Film Camp Pty Ltd Lives and works in Melbourne William Barak Born 1824, Melbourne Sheplife 2012 Maree Clarke Woiworung/Wurundjeri music video Born 1961, Swan Hill, Victoria Ngurungaeta (Elder) of the 3:31 mins Mutti Mutti/Yorta Yorta/ Wurundjeri-willam clan Oli Sansom (director) Boon Wurrung Died 1903, Melbourne Michelle Grace Hunder Lives and works in Melbourne (producer) Untitled (Ceremony) c. 1880- Golden Era Records Born of the Land 2014 1890s Courtesy Briggs and Golden Era video installation: video, particle paint, pencil, wash, pigments on Records board, sand, tree branches, paper plaster bandage, plaster 56.5 x 69.3 cm Bad Apples 2014 dimensions variable Koorie Heritage Trust Collection music video video duration: 1:48 mins 4:11 mins video production: SW Club 1897 Heata & Josh Davis (directors) Productions wood Golden Era Records Courtesy the artist and Vivien 75.0 x 11.2 x 6.1 cm Courtesy Briggs and Golden Era Anderson Gallery, Melbourne Koorie Heritage Trust Collection Records

98 99 River reed necklace with cockatoo Tarnbeere gundidj 2010 Marlene Gilson Chamika Sadler Ajuka Julin-Turner Liam Dunstan feathers 2014 synthetic polymer paint on Born 1944, Warrnambool Born 1997, Kingaroy, Queensland Born 1995, Frankston, Victoria Born 1998, Portland, Victoria river reed, cockatoo feathers, plywood and digital print Wathaurung/Wadawurrung Waka Waka/Quandamooka Ngarringjeri Gunditjmara waxed thread 246.0 x 120.0 x 1.2 cm (cross) Lives and works in Gordon, Lives and works in Melbourne Lives and works in Melbourne Lives and works in Portland, 48.0 m 84.0 x 59.5 (photograph) Victoria My identity 2014 Victoria Courtesy the artist and Vivien Courtesy the artist animation, digital video and Chamika Sadler Culture & Design 2016 Anderson Gallery, Melbourne Tunnerminnerwait and photography Born 1997, Kingaroy, Queensland digital video and photography Kilcarer gundidj 2010 Maulboyheenner 2015 01:22 mins Waka Waka/Quandamooka 2:30 mins Seed necklace 2015 synthetic polymer paint on synthetic polymer paint on linen Lives and works in Melbourne qandong seeds, gumnuts, waxed plywood and digital print 142.5 x 198.5 cm Tallara Sinclair Lily Graham thread 246.0 x 120.0 x 1.2 cm (cross) City of Melbourne Arts & Culture Born 1997, Shepparton, Victoria Tallara Sinclair Born 1996, Hobart 40.0 m 84.0 x 59.5 (photograph) Collection Yorta Yorta Born 1997 Tasmania Courtesy the artist and Vivien Courtesy the artist Lives and works in Shepparton Yorta Yorta Lives and works in Melbourne Anderson Gallery, Melbourne Land lost, land stolen, treaty 2016 Creating footprints worth Lives and works in Shepparton, Korin Gamadji Institute 2016 Gunaward gundidj 2010 synthetic polymer paint on linen following… 2014 Victoria digital video and photography River reed necklace with galah synthetic polymer paint on 120.0 x 150.0 cm animation, digital video and 4:35 mins feathers 2016 plywood and digital print Courtesy the artist photography TALC (Tallara, Ajuka, Liam, river reed, galah feathers, waxed 246.0 x 120.0 x 1.2 cm (cross) 0:53 mins Chamika) 2015 Patricia Mckean (with Lillian thread 84.0 x 59.5 (photograph) digital video and photography Arnold-Rendell) 30.0 m Courtesy the artist Korin Gamadji Institute Workshop #2: Museum Victoria 2:11 mins Born 1998, Warrnambool, Victoria Courtesy the artist and Vivien InDigeneity: Aboriginal young and ACMI, 6-9 April 2015: Gunditjmara/Kirrae Wurrong Anderson Gallery, Melbourne Eumeralla war 2010 people, storytelling, technology Workshop #3: Camp Jungai, Lives and works in Warrnambool, synthetic polymer paint on and identity 2014-16 Lillian Arnold-Rendell Rubicon, Central Victoria, 17-22 Victoria plywood and digital print digital storytelling video Born 1996, Wodonga, Victoria January 2016: Culture Connection 2016 (with Megan Cope 246.0 x 120.0 x 1.2 cm (cross) workshops Darug/Kamilaroi Lillian Arnold-Rendell) Born 1982, Brisbane 84.0 x 59.5 (photograph) Lives and works in Seymour and Lillian Arnold-Rendell digital video and photography Quandamooka Courtesy the artist Workshop #1: Museum Victoria Melbourne Born 1996, Wodonga, Victoria 4:33 mins Lives and works in Melbourne and ACMI, 9 September – 4 Darug/Kamilaroi Prangawan pootpakyooyano October 2014: Olajuwon Bamblett Lives and works in Seymour, Chamika Sadler Resistance 2013 yoowa 2010 Born 1998 Victoria Born 1997, Kingaroy, Queensland enamel on cardboard, core flute possum skin cloak Jessica Bennett Yorta Yorta/Warlpiri Culture Connection 2016 (with Waka Waka/Quandamooka and timber 150.0 x 110.0 cm Born 1998, Wagga Wagga, New Lives and works in Shepparton, Patricia Mckean) Lives and works in Melbourne dimensions variable Courtesy the artist South Wales Victoria digital video and photography Who are you and Who do you Courtesy of the artist and THIS Ngunnawal 4:30 mins think you are? 2016 IS NO FANTASY + dianne tanzer Walooyt 2010 Lives and works in Albury Jessica Bennett digital video and photography gallery, Melbourne 8 possum fur pouches My story 2014 Born 1998, Wagga Wagga, New Jessica Bennett 2:41 mins 18.0 x 15.0 x 8.0 cm (each, animation, digital video and South Wales Born 1998, Wagga Wagga, New approx.) photography Ngunnawal South Wales Courtesy Korin Gamadji Institute; Vicki Couzens Courtesy the artist 1:27 mins Lives and works in Albury Ngunnawal Acknowledgments: ACMI, Sista Born 1960 Warrnambool Lives and works in Albury Girl Productions, University of Kirrae Wurrong/Gunditjmara Ween Ween (Mourning bag) 2 011 Nakia Cadd Nakia Cadd From little connections big Melbourne, Museum Victoria, Lives and works in the Stoney spiny headed mat rush, feathers, Born 1997, Melbourne Born 1997, Melbourne connections grow 2016 National Gallery of Victoria, Rises near Colac string, ochre, possum fur Gunditjmara/ Yorta Yorta/Dja Dja Gunditjmara/ Yorta Yorta/Dja Dja digital video and photography Australian Research Council, 54.0 x 23.0 x 38.0 cm Wurrung/Bunitj Wurrung/Bunitj 2:23 mins VicHealth, Camp Jungai, Creative George Watmore killed Koorie Heritage Trust Collection Lives and works in Melbourne Lives and works in Melbourne Victoria by blacks 2010 I Am, Who I Am 2014 Nakia Cadd digital image animation, digital video and Barramundi 2015 Born 1997, Melbourne 42.0 x 29.7 cm Destiny Deacon photography digital video and photography Gunditjmara/ Yorta Yorta/Dja Dja Brian Martin Courtesy the artist Born 1957, Maryborough, 1:57 mins 3:48 mins Wurrung/Bunitj Born 1972, Sydney Queensland Lives and works in Melbourne Muruwari/Bundjalung/Kamilaroi Honour roll 2010 Ku Ku/Erub/Mer Liam Dunstan Liam Dunstan Yana – Back home 2016 Lives and works in Melbourne digital print Lives and works in Melbourne Born 1998, Portland, Victoria Born 1998, Portland, Victoria digital video and photography 155.0 x 60.0 cm Gunditjmara Gunditjmara 3:13 mins Methexical Countryscape Courtesy the artist Virginia Fraser Lives and works in Portland Lives and works in Portland, Bundjalung #5 2016 Born Melbourne Liam’s story 2014 Victoria charcoal on paper Moperer gundidj 2010 Lives and works in Melbourne digital video and photography 209.0 x 146.0 cm synthetic polymer paint on 3:45 mins Collection: The Australian Club, plywood and digital print Something in the air 2016 Melbourne 246.0 x 120.0 x 1.2 cm (cross) HD video, single channel 84.0 x 59.5 (photograph) projection, looped Courtesy the artist Courtesy the artists and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney

100 101 Methexical Countryscape Clinton Nain Bill Onus Bronwyn Razem Fall Out Baby IV 2016 Animals 2015 Bundjalung #6 2016 Born 1971, Melbourne Born 1906, Cummeragunja, New Born 1953 in Warrnambool, sandblasted glass, acrylic and synthetic polymer paint, felt tip charcoal on paper Meriam-Mir/Ku-Ku South Wales Victoria found hospital crib markers and collage 209.0 x 146.0 cm Lives and works in Melbourne Yorta Yorta Kirrae Wurrong/Gunditjmara crib: 81.0 x 82.0 x 42 cm 23.0 x 12.0 cm Collection: The Australian Club, Died 1968, Melbourne Lives and works in Geelong, bush plum: 38.0 x 20.0 x 20.0 cm Melbourne Water bottle bags 2013-16 Victoria (each, approx.) X mate 2015 plastic bottles, emu eggs, emu Home movie collection c.1964 Courtesy of the artist and THIS synthetic polymer paint, felt tip feathers, electrical cable, wire, standard 8mm film transferred to Koomakarrak ngarrapan (new eel IS NO FANTASY + dianne tanzer markers and collage Bruce McGuinness string digital files, silent basket) 2016 gallery, Melbourne 23.0 x 12.0 cm Born 1939, Cootamundra, New 91.8 x 47.2 x 38.6 cm 27:40 mins raffia South Wales Courtesy the artist National Film and Sound Archive 50.0 x 200.0 x 50.0 cm Fall Out Baby V 2016 Bowie 2015 Wiradjuri of Australia Courtesy the artist sandblasted glass, acrylic and synthetic polymer paint, felt tip Died 2003, Melbourne Courtesy the Onus family found hospital crib markers, carbon transfer and Glenda Nicholls Woolee wooleeyt ngarrapan (old crib: 82.0 x 81.0 x 43.0 cm collage Black Fire 1972 Born 1954 Swan Hill, Victoria eel basket) 2016 30 bush plums: 12.0 x 5.0 x 5.0 29.5 x 21.0 cm 16mm film transferred to digital Waddi Waddi/Yorta Yorta and Steaphan Paton flax and guinea fowl feathers cm (each, approx.) video, sound Ngarrindjeri Born 1985, Mildura, Australia 50.0 x 200.0 x 50.0 cm Courtesy of the artist and THIS Dingo Dingo 2016 23:58 mins Lives and works in Wood Wood, Gunai/Monero Courtesy the artist IS NO FANTASY + dianne tanzer synthetic polymer paint, felt tip Courtesy Kelli McGuinness Victoria Lives and works in Melbourne gallery, Melbourne markers and collage 12.0 x 23.0 cm Milloo (blue net) 2015 Cloaked Combat #2 2013 Reko Rennie Kent Morris woven dyed jute single-channel HDV Born 1974, Melbourne Peter Waples-Crowe Soldiers 2015 Born 1964, Melbourne 343.0 x 1363.0 cm 0:37 mins Kamilaroi Born 1965, Sydney synthetic polymer paint, felt tip Barkindji Courtesy the artist Courtesy the artist and Tristian Lives and works in Melbourne Ngarigo markers, glitter pen and collage Lives and works in Melbourne Koenig, Melbourne Lives and works in Melbourne 19.5 x 13.0 cm A woman’s right of passage 2015 Always here 2016 Cultural Reflections – Up Above 3 cloaks: jute string, dye, possum Cloaked Combat #3 2013 dye sublimation on satin banner Yes/No 2015 Ned Kelly 2015 #2 2016 (series): skin, wool, velvet, sixpence coin, single-channel HDV 490.0 x 140.0 cm synthetic polymer paint, felt tip synthetic polymer paint, felt tip silver chain, padlock, mussel 0:32 mins Courtesy the artist and markers and collage markers, glitter pen and collage Barkindji (Broken Hill) – White shell, quandong seeds, mirror, Courtesy the artist and Tristian blackartprojects, Melbourne 13.5 x 18.5 cm 19.5 x 13.0 cm Plumed Honeyeater 2016 glass beads, silver crucifix, emu Koenig, Melbourne Boonwurrung (St Kilda) – Noisy feathers Gone hunting 2015 All works courtesy of the artist Miner 2016 Welcome Cloak: 139.0 x 294.0 cm The magistrate 2016 Steven Rhall synthetic polymer paint, felt tip Wemba Wemba (Kerang) – Willy (spread) paper, archival glue, oil pastel Born 1974 on Wautherung markers and collage Wagtail 2016 Acknowledgement Cloak: 153.0 x and synthetic polymer paint on Country 30.0 x 22.5 cm Warriors of the Aboriginal Boonwurrung (St Kilda) – 275.0 cm (spread) canvas Taungurung Resistance (WAR) Rainbow Lorikeet 2016 Elder’s Cloak: 153.0 x 203.0 cm 128.0 x 160.0 cm Lives and works in Melbourne Dingo map 2015 Warriors of the Aboriginal Boonwurrung (Windsor) – Crow (spread) Courtesy the artist and Tristian synthetic polymer paint, felt tip Resistance was established in 2016 Courtesy the artist Koenig, Melbourne The biggest Aboriginal artwork in markers and collage 2014 as a collective of young Larrakia (Darwin) – White Melbourne metro 2014-16 30.0 x 21.0 cm Aboriginal people committed to Breasted Wood Swallow 2016 The officer in charge 2016 synthetic polymer, vinyl, decolonisation, resistance and Boonwurrung (St Kilda) – Magpie Mandy Nicholson paper, archival glue, oil pastel aluminium composite, wood, Outlaw 2015 revival; and the amplification 2016 Born 1975 in Healesville, Victoria and synthetic polymer paint on neon synthetic polymer paint, felt tip of community voices through Barkindji (Broken Hill) – Mallee Wurundjeri-willam canvas 361.0 x 386.5 x 100.0 cm markers and collage protest. Melbourne members Ringneck 2016 Lives and works in Melbourne 128.0 x 160.0 cm Courtesy the artist 20.5 x 27.5 cm include: Larrakia (Darwin) – Magpie Lark Courtesy the artist and Tristian 2016 Mindi the devil snake 2003 Koenig, Melbourne $ sign 2015 Gabi Briggs synthetic polymer paint Yhonnie Scarce synthetic polymer paint, felt tip Born 1990, Armidale, New South archival print on rag paper on paper, wire Yours faithfully the sheriff 2016 Born 1973 in Woomera, South markers, ink, and collage Wales 100.0 x 150.0 cm (each) 85.0 x 105.0 cm paper, archival glue, oil pastel Australia 21.0 x 14.5 cm Himberrong, Anaiwan and Courtesy the artist and Vivien Courtesy the artist and synthetic polymer paint on Kokatha/Nukunu Gumbangier Anderson Gallery, Melbourne canvas Lives and works in Melbourne Canis 2015 Lives and works in Melbourne Dhulin (Goanna) 2006 160.0 x 210.0 cm synthetic polymer paint, felt tip synthetic polymer paint Courtesy the artist and Tristian Fall Out Baby II 2016 markers, glitter pen and collage Meriki Onus on paper Koenig, Melbourne sandblasted glass, acrylic and 20.5 x 14.5 cm Born 1987, Naarm/Melbourne 75.0 x 95.0 cm found hospital crib Brayakaloong, Yigar an and Courtesy the artist crib: 81.0 x 82.0 x 42.0 cm Soul 2015 Tjapwurrung bush plums: 28.0 x 15.0 x 15.0 cm synthetic polymer paint, felt tip Lives and works in Melbourne (each, approx.) markers, glitter pen and collage Courtesy of the artist and THIS on book cover IS NO FANTASY + dianne tanzer 19.5 x 13.0 cm gallery, Melbourne

102 103 Arika Waulu No climate justice on stolen land Tent and four men 2016 Born 1985, Naarm/Melbourne 2015 hot poker drawing on custom Brayakaloong, Yigaran and synthetic polymer paint on cotton board Tjapwurrung sheet 21.5 x 36.0 cm Lives and works in Melbourne 772.0 x 88.0 cm Tent and trees 2016 Dtarmeen Onus-Williams No justice on stolen land 2015 hot poker drawing on custom Born 1993, Gunditj country synthetic polymer paint on vinyl board Yigar, Yorta Yorta, Wakka Wakka, 77.5 x 280.5 cm 25.0 x 35.0 cm Bindal and Dja Dja Wurrung Lives and works in Melbourne Resist, revive, decolonise 2015 Tent, fire, weapons 2016 synthetic polymer paint on hot poker drawing on custom Australia Day??? 2015 canvas board synthetic polymer paint on 153.0 x 152.0 cm 21.5 x 35.0 cm canvas 147.0 x 120.0 cm Resist, revive, decolonize 2015 Three men and canoe 2016 synthetic polymer paint on calico hot poker drawing on custom Australia Day celebrating 228 356.0 x 89.5 cm board years 2016 36.0 x 40.0 cm synthetic polymer paint on calico Stop the forced closures / Shut 88.0 x 197.0 cm down Don Dale 2016 Three men around fire 2016 synthetic polymer paint on hot poker drawing on custom Australian flag spit mask, Don canvas, adhesive tape board Dale 2016 86.0 x 716.0 cm 36.0 x 39.5 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas, adhesive tape WAR banner 2014 Six hills, seven trees 2016 157.0 x 175.0 cm indelible marker on vinyl and hot poker drawing on custom wood board Hands off our children 2016 180.0 x 192.0 cm 48.0 x 60.0 cm synthetic polymer paint and indelible marker on cotton sheet All works courtesy the artists All works courtesy the artist 178.0 x 256.0 cm

Healing centres not detention Lucy Williams-Connelly centres 2016 Born 1940 Narrandera, New synthetic polymer paint on card South Wales 80.5 x 101.0 cm Waradgerie Lives and works in Swan Hill, Indigenous land theft 2015 Victoria synthetic polymer paint, adhesive tape and wood Four men catching ducks 2016 163.0 x 162.5 cm hot poker drawing on custom board Invasion Day banner (Genocide) 36.0 x 40.0 cm 2016 synthetic polymer paint House 2016 on canvas hot poker drawing on custom 153.0 x 196.0 cm board 18.5 x 35.0 cm Koori kids 2006 synthetic polymer paint on Man with spear 2016 canvas hot poker drawing on custom 143.0 x 228.0 cm board 30.0 x 31.0 cm Massacre map Victoria 1836-1850 2014 Mother and six baby emus 2016 synthetic polymer paint on calico hot poker drawing on custom 183.0 x 282.0 cm board 21.5 x 35.0 cm

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Contributors Acknowledgements

Paola Balla is a Wemba-Wemba Max Delany is Artistic Director ACCA sincerely acknowledges practices and communities. We would like to especially Liddle, Manager, Aboriginal and Gunditjmara artist, curator and CEO at the Australian and extends our respect to the With Paola, I would like to thank Kelli McGuinness, Gary Partnerships, and Jeremy Gaden, and writer. Currently the Centre for Contemporary Art. Elders, families and forebears especially acknowledge and Foley and Edwina Howell; Senior Manager, Partnerships inaugural Victoria University Lisa He was formerly Senior Curator, of the Boon Wurrung, the thank the Sovereignty Advisory John Stewart and the family of Programs, at Creative Victoria, Bellear Post Graduate Scholarship Contemporary Art, at the National traditional owners and sovereign Group: Arweet Carolyn Briggs, Lisa Bellear; Destiny Deacon, for their support. recipient, her PhD research at Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. custodians of this Yalukit Willam broadcaster Daniel Browning, Virginia Fraser and Kim Kruger Moondani Balluk Indigenous Since 2011 he has also held the place. We also acknowledge curator Kimberley Moulton and for their work in curating Close And finally, heartfelt thanks and Academic Unit focuses on how position of adjunct Associate the neighbouring Wurundjeri artist Steaphan Paton, who – To You: The Lisa Bellear Picture appreciation to Arweet Carolyn Aboriginal women address Professor, Curatorial Practice, in peoples, and all Kulin Nations, along with many other artists Show at the Koorie Heritage Briggs, Director of the Boon trauma, violence and healing the Faculty of Art, Design and along with Aboriginal and Torres and colleagues with whom we Trust, from which a selection Wurrung Foundation, for the in art and activism. Most Architecture, Monash University. Strait Islander people who call have consulted – were especially of Lisa’s images are presented; deeply inspiring welcome to recently Executed in Franklin Victoria home. generous in their contribution Genevieve Grieves; Jonathan Country and for the wisdom of Street, which she curated for the Kimberley Moulton is a Yorta of expertise and advice. We Jones; and the dedication and her remarks in the Foreword City of Melbourne, was Highly Yorta curator and writer and We sincerely acknowledge and are honoured to have their generosity of Uncle Jim Berg. to this publication, and on the Commended in the Australia is Senior Curator of South thank the participating artists involvement, and especially occasion of the official opening & New Zealand Museums and Eastern Aboriginal Collections for their inspiring vision and appreciative for the engaging The exhibition has benefitted of the exhibition. Galleries Awards for Indigenous at Museums Victoria. She is an generosity. The research and feedback and knowledge that from many generous Project 2016. alumni of the National Gallery of development process has they have contributed to the collaborators including — MD Australia Wesfarmers Indigenous been an especially rewarding project, and the advocacy and Moondani Balluk Indigenous Tony Birch is the inaugural Bruce Leadership Program, 2010; British experience, meeting with artists ambassadorial role that they Academic Unit at Victoria McGuinness Research Fellow in Council ACCELERATE program, and communities to discuss the have played in the development University, where Paola is the Moondani Balluk Academic 2013; and the National Gallery of exhibition, their work, and their of the exhibition. currently a PhD candidate and Unit at Victoria University. His Australia International Curatorial cultural contexts and aspirations, the inaugural Lisa Bellear Post research is concerned with climate Fellow, 2015. Kimberley’s and we thank each of the In developing this publication, Graduate Scholarship holder; change; its impact on Indigenous practice looks at the intersection artists for welcoming us into we are also honoured to publish Luke Murray and the Korin communities and Indigenous of First Peoples’ art and the their studios and community new, critical writing by essayists Gamadji Institute; Fran Edmonds ecological knowledge. He was museum and First Peoples’ contexts, and for their support, Tony Birch and Kimberley and the Research Unit into most recently awarded the 2016 self-representation and access in knowledge and encouragement. Moulton, and we thank them for Public Culture at the University Victorian Premier’s Literary Award museums and galleries. We are privileged that many numerous inspiring discussions of Melbourne; Tiriki Onus at the for Indigenous Writing for his artists have chosen to make and conversations, and for their Wilin Centre, Victorian College novel Ghost River, University of new works especially for the insightful texts which underline of the Arts; and Dr Alec Morgan, Queensland Press, 2015. exhibition, and are equally the profound significance of the Macquarie University; among appreciative to others who have cultural practices and ideas at others. Arweet Carolyn Briggs is an entrusted us with the display the heart of the exhibition. Elder of the Yalukit Willam of the and animation of key works from As always, we sincerely Boon Wurrung language group their collections. An exhibition of this scope appreciate the work of ACCA’s from Victoria, and is recognised would not be possible without wonderful staff and installation as a keeper of the history and We would like to especially the support of many generous team, who have contributed to genealogies of her people. Aunty acknowledge Curator Paola public and private lenders we all aspects of the exhibition with Carolyn is Chair of the Boon Balla for her unwavering would especially like to thank great commitment, expertise Wurrung Foundation, which commitment to the exhibition Tom Mosby, Charlotte Christie and enthusiasm, and we she established to help connect and her passionate involvement and Jan Duffy at the Koorie acknowledge the contribution Aboriginal youth to their heritage. with the artists and communities Heritage Trust; Eddie Butler- of Exhibition Manager Liam Aunty Carolyn is a language and involved. It has been an Bowden and Victoria Garton at O’Brien and Curatorial Intern linguistics expert and is dedicated extraordinary pleasure, privilege the Art and Heritage Collection, Stephanie Berlangieri. to recording her Boon Wurrung and inspiration to work with City of Melbourne; and Clare language in oral and written form. Paola, to whom we are especially Norton and Siobhan Dee at Sovereignty has been conceived She has been active in commu- grateful – for her collegiality, the the National Film and Sound as a platform for Indigenous nity development, Native Title, brilliance of her ideas, the clarity Archives for the significant community expression, and cultural preservation and cultural of her communication, and the loan of key historical and we are especially grateful to promotion. In 2013 Aunty Carolyn ambition and compassion that contemporary works; along The Honorable Martin Foley MP, was recognised as the National she brings – as both an artist, with private lenders, gallerists Minister for Creative Industries, NAIDOC Female Elder of the writer and curator – to her and artist’s representatives for his support of the public, Year and is on the 2006 Victorian engagement with First Nations and estates for their generous education and professional Honour Roll of Women. Victorian artists, and Aboriginal assistance. development programs and Torres Strait Islander Peoples associated with the exhibition. nationally, and their cultural We are also grateful to Elizabeth

108 109 Project Credits ACCA Board ACCA Staff Weekend Gallery Coordinators Curators John Denton Max Delany Jessie Bullivant Paola Balla and Chair Artistic Director & CEO Hanna Chetwin Max Delany Anna Parlane Lesley Alway Linda Mickleborough Jacqui Shelton Editors Deputy Chair Executive Director Paola Balla and Gallery Attendants Peter Doyle Debra Lyon Max Delany Arini Byng Chair, Finance Finance & Maya Chakraborty Committee Operations Manager Exhibition Manager Nicholas Chilvers Liam O’Brien Dean de Landre John Dovaston Annika Kristensen Lucy Mactier Annemarie Kiely Curator Sean Miles Curatorial Intern Shelley Penn Lauren Ravi Stephanie Berlangieri Bernard Salt Alison Lasek Ella Shi Steven Smith Public Programs Jacqueline Stojanovic Graphic Design Andrew Taylor Manager Hana Vasak Matt Hinkley Grace Davenport Front Of House Patron Program & Photography Volunteers Special Events Manager Andrew Curtis, Janelle Hanann Al Daqqa Low, artists Kim Brockett Annette Allman Corporate Partnerships Maddy Anderson Copy editing Coordinator Oskar Arnold Annika Kristensen and Eloise Breskvar Kim Brockett Zoe Theodore Louise Choi Grants Coordinator & Eva Christoff Installation Team Development Ruth Cummins Beau Emmett Administrator Anna May Cunningham Tom Howie Janelle DeGabriele Simon McGuinness Eliza Devlin Anne Dribbisch Patrick O’Brien Education Manager Aleisha Earp Brian Scales Trinity Gurich Simone Topps Laura Couttie Ross Lowe Danae Valenza Visitor Services & Esther Raworth Volunteer Program Ryota Ryland Manager Fiona Shewan Madeline Simm Liam O’Brien Sofia Skobeleva Exhibitions Manager Dalton Stewart Isobel Stuart Kate Long Jacob Taylor Venue Hire Manager Keenan Thebus Camille Thomas Chelsey O’Brien Genevieve Trail Online Communications Bas van de Kraats Coordinator Alyxandra Westwood Agnes Whalan Andrew Atchison Grace White Artist Educator Alex Williams Gia Zhou Matt Hinkley Captions pp. 103-08 Designer Coffee Cart Baristas Jim Berg Jesse Dyer Silent witness – Katrina Hall Ander Rennick A window to the past Publicist Jacqui Shelton 2005 c-type photographic Bar Manager prints Ross Lowe 30.0 x 20.0 cm (each) Courtesy the artist

111 Visionary Patron Enthusiast Alice Pentland Benefactors Contemporary Circle Prescott Family Foundation Nicholas Brass & Zoe Ganim The Alderman Anouska Phizacklea Lesley Alway Morgan Phoa Family Fund Ingrid Braun Emma Anderson Angela Pye & Jeremy Bakker & Paul Hewison Inaugural Associates Anonymous Dominic & Natalie Dirupo Kerryn & Gary Anderson Toby & Clare Ralph Danielle & Daniel Besen Michaela Davis Mark Fraser Ruth Bain Andrew Rogers Foundation Richard Janko Rachel Griffiths Andrew Benjamin Allan & Eva Rutman Marc Besen AC Melissa Loughnan Legend & Andrew Taylor Claire Beynon Ryles & Associates & Eva Besen AO Alrick Pagnon Tania & Sam Brougham Jane Hemstrich Bialik College Cathy Scott Anthony Wesley Spencer J. Andrew Cook Jan Minchin Maryann & Michael Brash Katrina Sedgwick & Michele Boscia Vivien & Graham Knowles Mark & Louise Nelson Angela Brennan Helen Selby & Jim Couttie Nicholas Brass Associates Jane Morley Margaret Plant Janet Broughton Eugene Shafir & Zoe Ganim Fenina Acance Jane Ryan & Nick Kharsas Judy Buchan Nigel Simpson Ingrid Braun Ariani Anwar Alan & Carol Schwartz AM Robert Buckingham Sisters Beach House Tania & Sam Brougham Kyp & Luisa Bosci Champion Dahle Suggett Belinda Buckley Angela Taylor Beth Brown & Tom Bruce AM Brigid Brock Danielle & Daniel Besen Irene Sutton Dominique Burgoine William Taylor Morena Buffon Alexya Campbell Foundation Jan van Schaik Cantilever Interiors Nga Tran & Santo Cilauro blackartprojects Marc Besen AC Sarah & Ted Watts John & Christine University High School Robyn & Graham Burke Beth Fernon & Eva Besen AO Chamberlain Ravi Vasavan Morgan Phoa Family Fund Kylie T Forbes Morena Buffon Fiona Clyne Hon. Heidi Victoria MLA Helen Clarke Colin Golvan QC & Santo Cilauro Friend Rebecca Coates Anna Waldmann John Denton & Dr Deborah Golvan John Denton Betty Amsden OAM Jeni Cooper The Walls Art Space & Susan Cohn Jane Hayman & Susan Cohn Paul Auckett Madeleine Coulombe Rosemary Walls Annette Dixon Nick Hays Peter & Leila Doyle Bird de la Coeur Architects Julia Cox Jervis Ward Peter & Leila Doyle Regina Hill Anna Schwartz Helen Brack Virgina Dahlenburg Peter Westwood Rosemary Forbes Adam Kaye & Morry Schwartz AO Karilyn Brown Daskysdalimit Pty Ltd Andrew Wilson & Ian Hocking Alana Kushnir Michael Schwarz & David Sally Browne Fund Suzanne Dance Brian Zulaikha Ginny & Leslie Green & Shaun Cartoon Clouston Helen Clarke Diana Devlin Anonymous (17) Jane Hemstritch Jack Lang Robyn & Ross Wilson Jo Davenport Sue Dodd Vivien & Graham Knowles Briar Lloyd Detached Cultural Jennifer Doubell Jan Minchin Ross Lowe Organisation C. Douglas Jane Morley Annabel Mactier Guardian Sophie Gannon Fiction Film Company Kenneth W Park Claire Mazzone Lesley Alway & Paul Hewison The Late Neilma Gantner Elly & Nathan Fink Margaret Plant Brigitt Nagle BE Architecture Wendy Kozica & Alan Kozica Jessie French Prescott Family Foundation These Are The Projects Anthony & Michele Boscia Andrew Landrigan Vida Maria Gaigalas Susan M Renouf We Do Together Robyn & Graham Burke & Brian Peel A. Geczy Allan & Eva Rutman Adam Pustola Beth Brown & Tom Bruce AM In Memory of Bill Lasica Amy Grevis-James Jane Ryan & Nick Kharsas RAIDSTUDIO Georgia Dacakis Nicholas Lolatgis Amanda Hall Anna Schwartz Reko Rennie Annette Dixon Raoul Marks Katrina Hall & Morry Schwartz AO Claire Richardson Carole & John Dovaston The Mavis Fund Martin Hanns & Eliza Devlin Alan & Carol Schwartz AM Lynda Roberts Rosemary Forbes Naomi Milgrom Foundation Simon & Jane Hayman Michael Schwarz Jane Roberts & Ian Hocking Kenneth W Park Gavin John & David Clouston Matthew Taylor Ginny & Leslie Green Drew Pettifer & Francesca Black Gary Singer Anonymous (3) Susan M Renouf Sue Rose Kestin Family & Geoffrey Smith Gary Singer RAIDSTUDIO Annemarie Kiely Jennifer Strauss AM & Geoffrey Smith Steven Smith Natalie King Dahle Suggett Jennifer Strauss AM Allan & Wendy Kozica Irene Sutton Nella Themelios Cecily Kuoc Robyn & Ross Wilson Rosita Trinca Natalie Lasek & Martin Anonymous NS & JS Turnbull Matthews John Wardle Architects Anaya Latter Lyn Williams AM Georgina Lee Anonymous Damian Lentini Nicholas Lolatgis Deb Lyon John McNamara Tash Mian Gene-Lyn Ngian & Jeffrey Robinson Chelsey O’Brien

112 113 Sovereignty Exhibition Partners Sovereignty

Paola Balla and Max Delany (ed.s) Major Partner Exhibition Partners Media Partner 17 December 2016 – 26 March 2017 Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne

Published 2016 © Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, artists and authors

All rights reserved. No part of this Government Partners publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior per- mission in writing from the publish- er. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of 10% or one chapter of this book, whichev- er is greater, to be photocopied by Lead Partner Project Partner Media Partners any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution has given art a remuneration notice to Copyright guAUSTRALIidA e Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Australian Centre for Contemporary Art 111 Sturt Street Partners Southbank VIC 3006 Australia Telephone +61 3 9697 9999 Email [email protected] accaonline.org.au

ISBN: 978-0-9943472-4-4

Event Partners Cover image: Lisa Bellear RADIO Sovereignty 2006 C-type photograph Koorie Heritage Trust Collection

Captions pp. 103-08 Jim Berg Silent witness – A window to the past 2005 c-type photographic prints 30.0 x 20.0 cm (each) Courtesy the artist Trusts & Foundations

Corporate Members Supporters

115 Brook Andrew William Barak Lisa Bellear Jim Berg Briggs Trevor ‘Turbo’ Brown Maree Clarke Megan Cope Amiel Courtin-Wilson and Jack Charles Vicki Couzens Destiny Deacon and Virginia Fraser Marlene Gilson Korin Gamadji Institute Brian Martin Bruce McGuinness Kent Morris Clinton Nain Glenda Nicholls Mandy Nicholson Bill Onus Steaphan Paton Bronwyn Razem Reko Rennie Steven Rhall Yhonnie Scarce Peter Waples-Crowe Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance (WAR) Lucy Williams-Connelly

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