INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIAN PHOTOGRAPHERS AND PHOTOGRAPHY Education Resource 1 Horsham Regional Art Gallery Education Resource 2017 Indigenous Australian Photographers INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIAN PHOTOGRAPHERS AND PHOTOGRAPHY HRAG - COUNCIL GALLERY until 26 May 2017 Introduction: Contemporary engagement with notions of representation, race, gender and culture by Indigenous Australian photographers is producing some of the most exciting art currently produced in the Australia and presented internationally. It was fifty years ago that the then federal Holt Government called a referendum to amend the Australian constitution, the referendum on the 27 May 1967 made history as Australians voted overwhelmingly to amend the constitution to include Aboriginal people in the census and allow the Commonwealth to create laws for their future self-determination. This presentation of collection works celebrates some of the most provocative Indigenous photographers who, since that day, have challenged established ideas, of nationhood and self-identity, often utilising humour to great effect. List of works: 2007-27 2013-25 Darren SIWES Steven RHALL b.1968 Adelaide b.1974 We Made A Mission Truck And Took Them For A Drive from the series X (Wathaurung, Belmont) 2012 Mum I want to be black 2006 inkjet print cibachrome print 2011-10 1992-30 Bindi COLE Leah KING-SMITH Wathaurung b.1975 Melbourne b.1957 Gympie, Queensland Wathaurung Mob from the series Not really Aboriginal 2008 Untitled from the series Patterns of Connection 1991 pigment print on rag paper cibachrome photograph 2010-21 1982-1 Christian THOMPSON Pegg CLARKE Bidjara b.1978 Gawler, South Australia b.c1890, d.c1956 Australian 'Untitled' - Yellow Kangaroo Paw from the series Australian Graffiti 2008 A Bush Symphony nd C-type print Bromoil 2009-2 2004-1 Tony ALBERT GOVERNMENT PRINTER Girramay b.1981 Townsville, Queensland A Miner's Hut, Lithgow Valley, NSW C 1880s Optimism 8 from the series Optimism 2008 Albumen paper print Type C Print 1976-55 2011-11 UNKNOWN Tracey MOFFATT Untitled (Trooper's Tree at Roses Gap) nd b.1960 Brisbane Black and white, silver gelatin print Lip! 1999 DVD in collaboration with Gary Hillberg, duration 10mins 2008-40 Brook ANDREW 2001-78 Wiradjuti b.1970 Sydney Jon RHODES Parrot from the series Replicant 2006 b.1947 Australian Ilfochrome print At Yumari (I) Yumari Rockhole WA. 1990 silver gelatin print 2009-5 Fiona FOLEY 2001-77 Badtjala b.1964 Maryborough, Queensland Jon RHODES Nulla 4 eva V from the series Nulla 4 eva 2009 b.1947 Australian ultrachrome print on Hanemühle paper John Tjakamarra, Kintore Ranges, NT 1974 silver gelatin print 2013-19 Tracey MOFFATT 2001-79 b.1960 Brisbane Jon RHODES Self Portrait 1999 b.1947 Australian hand colored photograph. Rockhole Wave, Lungkurda Rockhole, Nyirrpi, N.T 1987 silver gelatin print 2004-18 J. LINDT b.1845, d.1926 Untitled (Portrait of Aboriginal Woman and Baby) C 1874 albumen paper print 2 Horsham Regional Art Gallery Education Resource 2017 Indigenous Australian Photographers KEY WORKS Bindi COLE CHOCKA Wathaurung b.1975 Melbourne Wathaurung Mob from the series Not really Aboriginal 2008 1035 x 1235mm COLE Bindi Cole works in a variety of media that challenges our broad cultural obsession with categorising identity. At the forefront of her concern is the classification of indigenous Australians according to the darkness or lightness of their skin. “The 1886 Victorian Aborigines Protection Act is an extraordinary example. This legislation categorised us, divided us and planted seeds of misconception that continue to grow and inform contemporary non-Indigenous ideas of what it means to be Really Aboriginal…. What the government didn’t count on was cultural resistance. What they didn’t realise was that Aboriginality has never been about skin colour. Before colonization, Yorta Yorta people were the colour of Yorta Yorta people. Wathaurung people were the colour of Wathaurung people. We were never Black before white people sailed in. It was a colonial need to reaffirm whiteness that started this preoccupation with skin colour. Kinship, culture, that’s what makes us Really Aboriginal, as Bindi Cole’s portraits illustrate.” Jirra Lulla Harvey 3 Horsham Regional Art Gallery Education Resource 2017 Indigenous Australian Photographers Fiona FOLEY Badtjala b.1964 Maryborough, Queensland Nulla 4 eva V 2009 800 x 1200mm FOLEY “There is more than one history, even though white, western history dominates. In Australia there is a lack of national in-depth engagement with this history except for our narrow, official, paper-thin view. Meanwhile, Fiona Foley has taken on the role of a kind of unofficial historian. Nobody has asked for or authorised this role but the history she explores is in fact our common national history, from both sides of the racial divide. Beyond its strong visual appeal, it’s really in this context that I believe her art should be read. The Cronulla ‘incident’ was one of contestation, historically as well as physically: contestation of the site—the beach as an Australian social interactive space, for many a ‘sacred’ place. Aboriginal people were never asked for comment about the incident—white Australians simply claimed the site (to keep an escape route open perhaps?). There was no reference to Aboriginal history even though many Sydney coastal and harbour beaches carry Aboriginal names—Akuna Bay, Barrenjoey, Bilgola, Bondi, Coogee, Curl Curl, Dee Why, Elanora, to name just a few. Successive waves of migrants have washed up on our shores—each challenged as they arrived by the previous wave, each vilified and to an extent subsumed and then dismissed. They are all strangers to us Aboriginal people. Who owns the beach? Aboriginal people, if anyone.” Djon Mundine 4 Horsham Regional Art Gallery Education Resource 2017 Indigenous Australian Photographers Brook ANDREW Wiradjuti b.1970 Sydney Parrot from the series Replicant 2006 Ilfochrome print 1242 x 2186mm ANDREW “Brook Andrew has always skirted a difficult path between harsh political and cultural issues while producing works of captivating and often luscious beauty. At the core of his amazingly diverse practice is his desire to make the viewer consider the construction of history and power.” Ashley Crawford, 2007. Parrot 2006 from the Replicant series sees Andrew using museum artefacts photographed then replicated technologically. The duel reflected portrait of the stuffed parrot, a prized museum piece, highlights and questions the decisions made by the original collectors, and the national institutions they created. When Andrew went searching the archives of the Melbourne Museum for artefacts relating to his cultural heritage, he found objects but no documentation relating to their history, at the same time as the Indigenous objects entered the museum collection so did a series of stuffed animals, although these came with reams of information relating to the animal, the location it was found, the finder and ultimately the taxidermist. This information ensures that these artefacts are displayed interoperated and celebrated. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the objects Andrew was originally searching for. Creating interdisciplinary works and immersive installations, Andrew’s presents viewers with alternative choices for interpreting the world, as does the arrangement of the artworks in this exhibition, by intervening, expanding and re-framing history and our inheritance. These perspectives are driven by his rich involvement with research practice and his cultural inheritance of Wiradjuri, Ngunnawal and Celtic ancestry growing up in and around Sydney. 5 Horsham Regional Art Gallery Education Resource 2017 Indigenous Australian Photographers Christian THOMPSON Bidjara b.1978 Gawler, South Australia 'Untitled' - Yellow Kangaroo Paw from the series Australian Graffiti 2008 Type C print 1000 x 1000mm THOMPSON ‘Untitled’ Yellow Kangaroo Paw from Thompson’s Australian Graffiti series builds on a tradition of performativity used by indigenous artists in addressing identity that is found across these galleries. Through his incorporation of elements of the Australian flora, Thompson performs and questions established understandings of indigeneity as synonymous with the land in this self-portrait. Graffiti has multiple connotations; public defacing of property, marking of territory, and political and social commentary. Thompson further extends the questioning of identity within this work with his playful adornment and fashion referencing an American tradition of 1980’s street culture, music, dance, and post disco clubbing. Christian Thompson’s work focuses on the exploration of identity, sexuality, gender, race and memory and creates art expressive of a continuing relationship to his country and culture of the Bidjara people of the Kunja Nation from south-west Queensland. Thompson has presented his photographs, videos and performance works in numerous solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally. In 2010 Thompson made history when he became the first Aboriginal Australian to be admitted into the University of Oxford in its 900-year history. He holds a Doctorate of Philosophy (Fine Art), Trinity College, University of Oxford, United Kingdom, Master of Theatre, Amsterdam School of Arts, Das Arts, The Netherlands, Masters of Fine Art (Sculpture) RMIT University Melbourne, Australia. 6 Horsham Regional Art Gallery Education Resource 2017 Indigenous Australian Photographers Tracey MOFFATT b.1960 Brisbane Self Portrait, 1999 hand colored photograph. 340