Vernon Ah Kee Fiona Foley Born Innisfail, , Australia, 1967; Born Maryborough, Queensland, Australia, Kuku Yalandji, Waanji, Yidinji and Gugu 1964; Badtjala people. Yimithirr peoples. Lives and works in , Australia. Curated by Djon Mundine OAM Asialink Lives and works in Brisbane, Australia. Bliss 2006 and Natalie King 4th Floor Sidney Myer Asia Centre Whitefella normal, blackfella me 2004 Digital video with sound The University of Digital video with sound 11:00 minutes Artists: Vernon Ah Kee, Parkville VIC 3010 Australia 00:30 seconds Courtesy of the artist and Bindi Cole, Destiny Deacon/ T: +61 3 8344 4800 F: +61 3 9347 1768 Courtesy of the artist and Andrew Baker Art Dealer, Brisbane Virginia Fraser, Fiona Foley, Milani Gallery, Brisbane www.asialink.unimelb.edu.au Ivan Sen Ivan Sen and Christian Thompson. Shadowlife: moving image is part Bindi Cole Born Namber, Queensland, Australia, 10–12 February 2012 of the current Asialink/ Born Melbourne, Australia, 1975; 1972; Gamilaroi people. Melbourne Indigenous Arts Festival Art Gallery touring exhibition that Wathaurung people. Lives and works in . Federation Square, ACMI and is supported by the Australian Lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. Dust 1999 Birrarung Marr and surrounds Government through the Department Seventy Times Seven 2011 Digital video with sound www.melbourne.vic.gov.au Digital video with sound 25:00 minutes of Foreign Affairs and Trade and 10:21 minutes Courtesy of the National Film The 4th edition of India Art Fair the Australia Council for the Arts, Edition of 5 & Sound Archive, ACT (formerly India Art Summit) The Australian Government’s arts Courtesy of the artist and 25–29 January 2012 funding and advisory body, through Christian Thompson Nellie Castan Gallery, Melbourne New Delhi the and Craft Strategy Born Gawler, South Australia, www.indiaartfair.in an initiative of the Australian, Destiny Deacon/Virginia Fraser 1978; Bidjara people. State and Territory Governments. Born Maryborough, Queensland, Australia, Lives and works in Oxford, First published 2012 1957; KuKu and Erub/Mer peoples. The United Kingdom. Hayman Design Lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. Gamu Mambu (Blood Song) 2010 Edition of 1000 Born Melbourne, Australia; Digital video with sound Tour manager: Sarah Bond lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. 2:30 minutes Technical assistant: Will McCallum Forced into images 2001 Courtesy of the artist and Curatorial assistant: Genevieve Osborn Super 8 film finished on video, DVD format Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne © 2012 the authors, 9:00 minutes Asialink and artists. Edition of 20 ISBN 978 0 7340 4754 0 Courtesy of the artists and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney

FOR USE 15MM OR LARGER

Bendigo Art Gallery

Destiny Deacon Forced into images 2001 (Clockwise from below) (Cover) Ivan Sen Christian Thompson Fiona Foley Dust 1999 Gamu Mambu (Blood Song) 2010 (still) Bliss 2006 (still) Vernon Ah Kee Whitefella normal, blackfella me 2004 (still) Bindi Cole Seventy Times Seven 2011 (still)

The history of Aboriginal people is that of figures; Bindi Cole’s new filmSeventy Times Seven (2011) Ivan Sen’s Dust (1999) navigates the contested physical, of numbers; and of shadows. Dreaming tells us that explores how the personal and societal converge. In social and historical landscape in western New South the shadow is your soul. A person can never desert a contentious work, Cole filmed Aboriginal participants : a landscape colonized in the fullest sense, in its shadow and a shadow cannot leave its human cast. willing to say ‘I forgive you’ on camera to white economic and agricultural terms through cotton farming Prominent Aboriginal figures that dot the historical Australian society. For Cole, a personal forgiveness and the social displacement of the original inhabitants. Australian landscape carry a shadowy-halo edge of allowed her to move on. Can this be applied to society’s But the land is full of shadows and ghosts that lie just Aboriginality only seen and recognized by most people wider historical crimes in the Aboriginal context? below the surface of everyday life. at certain fleeting moments of intense emotional, social Destiny Deacon/Virginia Fraser enacts urban domestic Christian Thompson’s video Gamu Mambu (Blood Song) and spiritual exposure. Shadowlife addresses these stories with dolls and everyday objects configured into 2010 shows a group of Dutch baroque singers singing moments of intensity through the photo and filmic hilarious yet grim soap operas deftly uncovering stories in Bidjara, the language of his heritage. Through dress, practices of six Aboriginal artists. of racism and persecution. The title, Forced into images song, photographic and video images, Thompson Wungguli, an Arnhem Land Djambarruyngu word, (2001), is derived from a quote by African American harnesses iconographies from completely different means spirit and shadow and came to describe author Alice Walker who talks of, and crucially how times and cultures, blending them into magical hybrids. photographic image. In 1960, Aboriginal singer people live up to or reject these typecasts. A silent By integrating stories of many differing, small ethnic Jimmy Little had a hit song with The Shadow of the video, Forced into images (2001) captures Deacon’s groups, Thompson values their individual expression. Boomerang, from the film of the same name. Shadows niece and nephew role-playing and acting out with Shadowlife embraces moving image with all its are our souls which we can never leave; nor can masks. The improvised play by these young relatives directness, theatricality and immediacy by confronting our shadow exist independent of us. Each artist is a reminds us to be cognizant of the simple yet profound stereotypes and acting out scenarios. Shadows, storyteller. Since exchanges between children. like photographic and moving images, follow us and the mid-1980s, Indigenous photographers have Fiona Foley reinterprets the history of enforced opium infiltrate our daily lives but are now the expression we become empowered through the use of photography addiction within the Queensland Aboriginal community control and project. They comfortingly hover around for role-playing, self-representation and affirmation. in the 1850s in a poetic video of swaying poppies. Foley us and return us to our past and point to our future. Vernon Ah Kee’s explores rap as a linguistic tool for traces the ongoing significance of Australia’s colonial Are they a protective guardian or a curse of history? free form poetry that is direct and political. Whitefella histories with uncompromising directness. The notion of Djon Mundine OAM and Natalie King, Curators normal, blackfella me (2004), deploys language and bliss or euphoria questions how Australians can live in a chanting in a short rap song featuring himself. Biting and dreamlike state ignoring the reality of history. Luscious black, Ah Kee aerates concerns and emotions from the and hypnotic, the video Bliss (2006) of colourful flowers streets. These issues are expressed aurally with phrases belies the insidious history that Foley has uncovered. that are profoundly beautiful, pithy and poetic.