Jasper Jordan-Lang: ‘Attention Interest Action’ at Cache

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Jasper Jordan-Lang’s exhibition ‘Attention Interest Action’ at Cache brought attention to the people and places who have come before us and provided a window into the everchanging landscape of Naarm/Melbourne.

Walking down Little La Trobe Street, I worried that I would miss the entrance to the gallery. Founded by artist Tommaso Nervegna-Reed and architect Andre Bonnice in early 2024, Cache resides on the top floor of the old offices of Edmond & Corrigan, the architectural firm behind many prominent Melbourne buildings, including the VCA Theatre building in Southbank, Building 8 of RMIT and Niagara Galleries in Richmond.

I entered Cache full of assumptions. Previous iterations of Jordan-Lang’s work that I have encountered were meticulously refined geometric forms that came together in response to their geography. What I did not expect was to see a collection of photographs emblematising the visual style of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner 2049.

At first glance, the five photographs comprising the exhibition were incomprehensible—akin to the experience of seeing an impressionist painting. I was convinced that the work had been altered in some way: Photoshop, AI or collage. However, on closer inspection (and receiving clarification from the artist himself) the crackling neon pictures revealed themselves to be unedited photographs of existing images.

The original pictures in question were stock photographs for La Do Vietnamese and Thai, a now defunct restaurant located on the corner of Boundary Road and Canning Street in North Melbourne. Once marketing spring rolls, Peking duck and miscellaneous alcoholic drinks, a decade of wind, sun and rain exposure has morphed the once commonplace into the sumptuously absurd.

Riddled with nostalgia, Jordan-Lang’s work buzzes with the grit and vibrancy of a late-night dining spot, the kind that is bathed in a pool of neon light and where the edges of your vision blur. Images of martini glasses and pints dripping with anticipation scratch against a decade’s worth of exposure to UV radiation. There is no colour from nature in this series—if they were food, they would probably give you cancer—but the effect is a cybernetic display of extravagance. 

Nestled among the gridded black rails that guard the old Edmond & Corrigan library, the five photographic artworks take on the characteristics of a lab-grown gemstone. Ink-jet print on particle board, the photographs jilted against the utilitarian space, their vibrancy a sonogram of the bustling city outside.

In many ways ‘Attention Interest Action’ is an extension of the site specific, minimalist work that Jordan-Lang has previously produced. In this iteration, however, rather than engaging with found objects as a reference to location, Jordan-Lang makes traces of Melbourne’s lost geography visible through the pictorial plane. The oblique marks imprinted in the photographs footnote the years of development under city life. Each indication of grit and weathering forms a register of years passed.

The particle board backing of the pictures mimicked the floor of Cache to create a synergy between art and place. The photographs also matched the space in a different way: while the subject of the images captures the effect of time, the gallery, which operates on a month-to-month basis while waiting for renovation plans, is an example of time passing itself.

Resplendent is a terrible word. Truly it is terrible, it imparts a high-school-naivety onto beautiful things and in doing so transmutes them into a gaudy caricature. However, despite my reservations towards the term, when I entered the tight gallery and saw Jordan-Lang’s exhibition, it was the first word that came to mind.

The photographs speak to the ever-changing topography of Melbourne and offer a glimpse of stagnation within a rapidly developing landscape. Jordan-Lang’s ‘Attention Interest Action’ is the relief print of the city’s past and a spectre of the people and places who have come before us.

Lily Beamish, Naarm/Melbourne

‘Attention Interest Action’ by Jasper Jordan-Lang was exhibited at Cache in Naarm/Melbourne for a single weekend, August 24–25 2024.

Artists Gail Mabo and Nikau Hindin introduce their project for the Sydney Opera House

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Every night until 15 December 2024, Badu Gili: Celestial, a digital animation featuring works by Meriam artist Gail Mabo and Te Rarawa/Ngapuhi artist Nikau Hindin is being projected on to the Bennelong sails of the Sydney Opera House. The work is a joint commission by the Sydney Opera House, the Biennale of Sydney and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.

Although they’re separated by a stretch of ocean, Mabo and Hindin share the same commitment to sharing First Nations stories and histories that are held in the stars through their art. Both Mabo’s bamboo and star-sand maps, and Nikau’s bark cloth kites and maps, carry traditional knowledge, which is now being showcased in a new way through animation. Celestial is an instalment of ‘Badu Gili’, the Opera House’s free, nightly light display of work by Indigenous artists.

“Tubowgule, where the Sydney Opera House stands today, has long been a meeting place for celebration, culture and community,” explains Michael Hutchings, Head of First Nations Programming at the Opera House. “‘Badu Gili’ continues this legacy, sharing both living and ancient stories told through vibrant animations projected onto one of the 20th century’s most iconic buildings. The ‘Badu Gili’ project, meaning ‘water light’ in the language of the traditional owners of the site, was initiated by our inaugural Head of First Nations Programming, Rhoda Roberts. Rhoda’s passionate advocacy and curation was instrumental in the project’s beginnings in 2017. Now in its fourth edition, Badu Gili is a pillar of the Opera House’s year-round First Nations program, demonstrating our commitment to fostering and celebrating the rich history and vibrancy of First Nations people and culture.”

Here, in conversation with Billie Phillips, Assistant Curator of the Biennale of Sydney, Gail Mabo and Nikau Hindin discuss how Badu Gili: Celestial came to life.

 Billie Phillips (BP): Both your works deal with constellations. How did each of you learn about the stars and the stories that are depicted in your works?

 Gail Mabo (GM): The star maps came from stories that my dad told me, which are the stories told throughout the Torres Straits, of Tagai. Tagai was our main God that we use to navigate across the Straits. And when you’re looking at Tagai, you’re looking at the whole sky. From the tip of Queensland, Australia to Papua New Guinea, that’s that small bracket of sky that we look at, and that’s where Tagai lies.

 I also put in an acknowledgement to my children and their Koori heritage through the Emu Dreaming story, along with the Lamir Kuskir, or the Seven Sisters story, which you have from the Central Desert, but also in the Torres Straits. Lamir Kuskir refers to the wives of this old man who he banished to the sky. They sit above him, laughing, due to the things that he did wrong to them. ‘Poor fella, he still lives by himself. Look at him down there!’ they say. It’s been translated through dance and now I’ve translated it through a star story.

Nikau Hindin (NH): I first learnt about the stars when I was living in Hawai’i. I was learning about bark cloth practice at the same time I was learning about celestial navigation. The star maps that I create are a way for me to memorise our stars, our specific names for those stars, and where they rise on the horizon. The stars become markers for direction, so that we can locate ourselves in time and space. Then, when I returned to Aotearoa, the process of making star maps became even more important because I had to then translate the Hawaiian and English names into our Maori names and learn our Maori stories.

Since learning about celestial navigation, I’ve discovered more about the way that our stars change during different times of the year and how our stars have been used to record time. Indigenous peoples have observed stars throughout generations and possess an inherent understanding or knowing about time and an understanding that a single generation is brief and that the knowledge that I know about stars now is many, many generations old.

BP:  Both of your works draw upon such a deep well of community and cultural knowledge. I know that in the making of this work you both engaged in a series of collaborations. What was it like for you when you saw your works being transformed from one medium into another?

 GM: In the initial conversation I was trying to wrap my head around the idea of projecting onto the Sydney Opera House. I thought: ‘How are they going to animate the maps?’ When they first showed me the early animation of pulling it apart and putting it back together, I was amazed, I had this whole fascination with ‘What else can you do? What are you going to do with my stars?’

 Later, when I was sleeping, I could hear ‘Requiem for Eli’, which is a sound piece by Nigel Westlake. There was a bit of music in there that just kept standing out. And it was grand, it was bigger, it could be big as a sky. So, when I awoke, I went to Nigel and I said, ‘There's a piece of work that you have’ and he knew exactly what it was and that it needed to be used for this. He went to his studio for a moment and through the speakers came the sound I wanted. We also needed the vocals of a male chant, so we approached David Bridie. I’ve worked with him on different things, he’s a writer and composer from Melbourne who works with people from Papua New Guinea.

 NH: Having my kind of works on the Sydney Opera House is such a massive shift in scale, but also in material. My work is very physical and labour intensive and the materials are from our environment, whereas an animation is transient or intangible. So I really had to trust the animation process because I’m not an expert in making patterns move, so I enjoyed that exchange. In some aspects, I was quite specific with how I wanted the movement to happen because of the way that I interpret or understand how the stars move, and how I would like the maps to be read.

BP: What aspect of each other’s work resonates with you the most?

NH:  I was left speechless at the way that the stories of our stars are told through Gail’s artwork and the conceptualisation of this vast space. How she creates something that’s tangible to interpret this vast, vast knowledge system.

 And also, the stars. There are so many little things about scale in your work, which is really interesting. You’ve kind of gone from tiny to big, all from a tiny grain of sand. So, there’s this beautiful thread of scale that is really profound. I love that, Gail, you hold the stories of your people. You’re a Kaitiaki, or a guardian of those stories that are so old and so important.

GM: Thank you, Nikau. My mind is blown at what you’ve done. It’s absolutely beautiful. The first thing that gets me with your work is that sound. When I close my eyes, I drift to where you come from. I can see your kites flying around in my head. Then, I see your work unfolding: the beating of the cloth, to the beautiful patterns they become, to the kites that fly through the sky. Your work gives me a reason to go investigate a little bit more into your culture.  One day I will come across to New Zealand and you can show me.  

NH: You know it!

This is an edited extract from a longer conversation that was published in Art Monthly Australasia’s special edition about the 24th Biennale of Sydney. Buy a copy of that issue here.

Please note macrons in the Te Reo Maori terms do not appear on this webpage.

Claudia Nicholson: ‘If The Mountain Is Burning, Let It Burn’ at UTS Gallery

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Rearranging, recollecting and recovering: these are the actions that define Claudia Nicholson as she reaches back into her archive. ‘If The Mountain Is Burning, Let It Burn' is a sombre, blurry and glittering exhibition, and the latest output of the University of Technology Sydney’s (UTS) Artist in Residence program. Positioned within the Ultimo campus, UTS Gallery is dimly lit, as if you were searching for photographic clarity through a smouldering haze. Nicholson’s spotlit photographs remind me of how museums tend to illuminate disparate artefacts to increase their dramatic effect. The subject matter and the memories evoked are vast, heavy and sentimental.

In developing the exhibition, Nicholson excavated her personal archive to glean and reorganise a portrait of Colombia, with images taken from family photographs, negatives discovered at flea markets, as well as her own photographs and videos. The artist is one of thousands of children adopted from Colombia to Australia since the 1970s, a subject Nicholson has explored at different points throughout her practice.

Many of the histories conveyed in the exhibition are small and personal, like the images of Nicholson and her sister. Butterfly Sanctuary (2024) presents a sweetly inquisitive little girl, her gaze fixed on a butterfly as it hovers towards her heart; imagery that could feature in the music video for a pop song contemplating the evanescence of girlhood. Equally wistful is The Deep Rivers Say it Slowly (2023), the video installation at the heart of the exhibition. The lulling and slightly unnerving music by Monica Brooks accompanies images of protest, violence and more butterflies. The video is projected upon a surface covered in a delicate and fine glitter, cohering the story of war and amnesty, girls and butterflies in nostalgia. Images fade into one another, as if doubly exposed, to evoke memories interposed with the dreams of an observer.

Many of the photographs in the exhibition have been captured by Nicholson, several by her father, and others collected on a 2008 trip to Bogota. The narrative connecting these images asks: what if memory was outsourced? If we stole historical memories as personal ones? If we inserted personal memories into archives? Who does the memory belong to? 

Nicholson describes the project as coming “after a pause in making.” The residency program has provided Nicholson with a recess to arrange her personal archive, and working with Cherine Fahd and Dr Marivic Wyndham has encouraged the artist to reconsider her past portraits of Colombia by applying a newly developed visual language. Nicholson’s vibrant Alfombra de aserrín (sawdust carpets) that have previously been made into installations and performance works stand in stark contrast to what we see here. Usually, their form has allowed them to be destroyed in some kind of performance spectacle. If they were neon, they pulsated with gradients and gothic fonts associated with the played out ‘Tumblr aesthetics’ of the mid 2010s. Nicholson’s exhibition at UTS Gallery is much more opaque.

‘If The Mountain Is Burning, Let It Burn' offers further evidence of the important role played by artist research initiatives such as the UTS Artist in Residence program. These opportunities provide artists with the resources to experiment and conduct research into innovative modes of making and, in this case, has allowed Nicholson the access to facilities and expertise to explore new outcomes in her practice. The negatives from old family albums and found photographs are transformed by Nicholson’s processes and treatments. The photographs begin to escape the precision of the institution, and sometimes even eschew the camera entirely. They suggest hidden iterations, progressions that were once crystalline to atrophying copies and prints. The technology of image making reshapes what was captured into a narrative, creating a new texture for the artist’s history and her relationship to Colombia. And the texture is sometimes a glittered projection surface.

Laura Luciana, Warrang/Sydney

‘If The Mountain Is Burning, Let It Burn’ is on display at UTS Gallery until 20 October 2024.

Tony Albert, Erin Vink and Kimberley Moulton discuss curating First Nations art across borders

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In his role as the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain First Nations Curatorial Fellow for the 24th Biennale of Sydney, Tony Albert commissioned works from Indigenous artists both in Australia and around the world. In the following conversation, he discusses opportunities for international collaboration between First Nations artists, curators and communities with Kimberley Moulton (Yorta Yorta), Senior Curator of Rising festival and Adjunct Curator, Indigenous Art at Tate Modern; and Erin Vink (Ngiyampaa), Curator of First Nations Art (local and global) at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) and Chair, Art Monthly Australasia.

Tony Albert (TA): Erin, your role has recently changed from Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art to Curator, First Nations Art (local and global). Why is that an important transition within the title and within the institutional framework of caring for and acknowledging global Indigenous art?

Erin Vink (EV): My position shifted to include a global Indigenous remit about 12 months ago. It stemmed from a long, warm conversation I had with our shared colleague, Léuli Eshrāghi [Seumanutafa/Tautua], who undertook a three-month research review of the AGNSW in early 2020. Léuli prepared a report for the gallery on how to grow a collection, which also included other elements such as exhibition programming, positions and the like. I have taken Léuli’s initial proposal and reformatted it to become something that is achievable within the existing structures of the institutional model. I believe it is important that we have an outward-facing curatorial position demonstrating that we care for all Indigenous kin. Grounded in local First Nations art, we can adopt best practices for how to work with our global Indigenous artists, how to support community and how to respect language and cultural groups, for example.

TA: How would a work by an international First Nations artist be entered into the institution’s collection?

EV: At the AGNSW, prior to my role, artists would come into the collection through the international collection stream: into the Pacific collection, for example, if they were Indigenous from the Great Ocean, or Indigenous artists from Asia would go into the Asian art collection. Maybe their language group would be recorded on their catalogue record but, more often than not, none of the information that we, as Australian First Nations people record, would be assigned to their artwork. Now that I care for the global Indigenous collection, we treat international First Nations art as we would Australian First Nations work.

TA: Kimberley, you have previously done a fellowship at Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection at the University of Virginia with a focus on Indigenous Australian art.  

Kimberley Moulton (KM): I was the recipient of the inaugural curatorial fellowship at the Kluge-Ruhe with the National Gallery of Australia and Wesfarmers Indigenous Arts Leadership Program in 2015 and have done several programs with other Indigenous curators to connect with mob internationally. I’ve been to Sápmi country, Norway, Sweden and Finland, North America and South Asia connecting to peers and kin. These opportunities were such a crucial time for me in thinking around how we communicate our culture, our art and what we’re doing in the world in connecting with other mob. These moments opened my world, connecting me with international Indigenous practice. It’s about building solid relationships based on relationality, and not necessarily just about exhibition and extraction, which often is the focus in the art world and museum spaces. This time of connecting led me to develop my practice and to consider how to create space for Indigenous artists and communities and build our own determined spaces.

TA: The dialogue amongst artists has gained international traction over the past few years, particularly with the aabaakwad (it clears after a storm), a series of Indigenous-led conversations founded in 2018 by Wanda Nanibush [Anishinaabe]. I am often surprised at how Australia is viewed internationally with regards to its First Nation dialogue: we as Indigenous Australians are seen as having infiltrated institutions, sometimes through force, to have our voices heard. I’m wondering if you could talk about the history attached to Indigenous curatorial practice and its contemporary presence on the global stage.

EV: There have been amazing movers and shakers that have carved out this space for us. If you put your finger on the pulse right now, what I find the most interesting is institutional curators who are all working to the idea of Indigenisation rather than decolonisation. We’re working in a way of adding culture to our institutions, and it doesn’t always have to be in the same way. We have the flexibility of experimentation due to the core work that our Indigenous curatorial leaders have done in overcoming roadblocks that they themselves experienced in curatorial positions in the 1990s and early 2000s.

TA: It is an interesting comment because we hear about decolonisation so much, and I’ve always been a fan of Indigenising space rather than decolonising space. We (as people) need to be in the institution and have autonomy to add to it.

KM: A lot of my early international research was connecting with and reserching our Ancestral Belongings in places like the British Museum. These places hold our material, but I was also trying to understand the ways in which artists, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, connect within that space and with ‘museum’ objects. I learnt that we are always within this Oceanic grouping of people and came to understand and critically evaluate the legacy of homogenisation, ethnographic collecting and the effect of that on the way in which our contemporary art and practices are understood by non-Indigenous curators and anthropologists. My research has also led me to work deeply in the ways in which First Peoples artists can restore the spirit of collections and history through practice. More recently I have focused on more of a contemporary framework, working at the Tate Modern. However, I challenge the binary of historic and contemporary in my practice—it is all connected and relevant.

I believe having more Indigenous curators and artists engaging internationally and having roles with autonomy and responsibility that are engaged properly with institutions and their collections is important. There’s still work to be done, but the growing realisation within international art spaces and museums is that they need to work with Indigenous people, and that we need to have the position of leadership in terms of our contemporary art and determine the way our cultures are represented in these spaces. We need to also critically challenge the absence of our presence in art history in these places, which connects directly to current discourse in Indigenous-led research into theories of race, relationality and anti-colonial practice.

Whenever you work for any institution, there’s always this immense responsibility that you have to community and ancestors. It’s too much for one person to carry. I’ve worked in institutions for a long time now, and I’ve come to the realisation that you can care, and you can take that responsibility seriously, but you can’t carry the entire load of the history of Indigenous art and colonial ethnographic collecting to try and change or decolonise these spaces. I think my strategy going in, especially into my new role, was, okay, I can’t decolonise these big institutions, whatever that means. I don’t even believe in that anymore. Instead, it’s thinking that, if I’m here for however many years and I understand the current policies of acquisition, of exhibition, of the institution, then there can be a progression in the representation of First Nations people and a stronger focus on Indigenous art—and I can help the institution address that there has been a very large absence of that to date. Ultimately, I ask myself: how can I make the most impact for First Peoples artists and community in whatever I do?

This is an edited extract from a longer conversation that was published in Art Monthly Australasia’s special edition about the 24th Biennale of Sydney. Buy a copy of that issue here.

Tim Hardy: ‘Decor’ at Treadler

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Tim Hardy’s ‘Decor’ is sneaky, like the best conceptual art. Cunning like the conceit of things hidden in drawers, actually. Although coldly oblique at first, the contents of each of Hardy’s photographic panels is eventually revealed, similarly to how Marguerite Duras rummages through her own chest of drawers in Practicalities (1987), a collection of autobiographical essays, excerpts of which are distributed at the show as a bundle of dishevelled paper scraps—again, just like you might find tucked away in the ramshackle neglect of an ‘everything drawer’. Which is to say, like Duras in her essays, Hardy is interested in the baroque, the romantic and the mysterious, and in marrying these things to the everyday, to the domestic. What’s in a chest of drawers? Depending on the drawers you might have old secrets gathering dust (or shame), unpaid bills, love letters, or any amount of useless bric-à-brac which at one time might’ve seemed important. But things fade. Or conversely, they wax in importance, even in their neglect, to be resurrected at a later date. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes by chance.

The photographs within Hardy’s panels (read: drawers) are imagistic mementos, floating out of context much like the notes we embalm as memory, the very bedrock of recall. Nothing is recalled whole; our sense of history (personal, national) is a haphazard bundle of fragments, the more sensory the better. Here we have: images of someone’s intimate effects, Act One: Domestic Scene (2024); feminine legs surrounded by luggage, Act Two: Compact Mirror (2024); and a violin, Act Three: The Lament (2024). Drowning in negative space and utterly void of explication, Hardy’s invitation here is to confabulate, to dream connective tissue where there is none. Such is the mystery of old drawers, or an old bureau. The kind your grandparents have, which probably isn’t haunted but emanates the vibration of the past; a banal kind of hauntology, the eerie thickness of layered residues. The confounding silence of the trace. If these images are inaccessible, it is the inaccessibility of someone else’s life which we can only read in glimpses. Every history that isn’t ours is an alien ruin.

Between the disarray of a ransacked drawer set and the alluring legs of a woman in transit (presumably), the idea of a traveller is evoked in Hardy’s work. Perhaps these are ghostly or sad images because they’re all that’s left of a person that’s gone. Not dead necessarily, which makes the situation arguably even more crushing than a bereavement, because they have vanished due to circumstances or (worse) choice. Perhaps then the violin emits a dirge of unspeakable loss. That we are here, while the traveller is out there collecting more experiences, more memories, more artefacts for her own drawers, which she can then curate in the museum of old age. To speculate further, perhaps the sense of grief found in ‘Decor’ is laced with the bitter realisation that no person can ever be contained within a drawer, that a living breathing person is always more than the ritual objects we use to conjure them. Flesh violently trumps symbolism.

‘Decor’ is a promising albeit quiet vision from a young visual artist perhaps poised to do something bolder down the line. Though in caveat the stillness of the works is probably the point; that memory is dead, that its artefacts are dead, that hoarding the past in dusty totems can never be the séance we perhaps want it to be. And it can certainly never be resurrected in the ways we’d like. Still, the romance here is (so much like Duras) one of longing, born of quiet. Quiet between momentous action where we wobble, or doubt, or look back out of fear of what’s ahead; defensively craving the past as something completely and utterly known which in itself is a delusion. If there’s one thing that can’t be trusted, it’s our memories of the past. They’re curated like anything else, selected or denied according to criteria in the present, subject to so much occult revision. Which, by this essential tragedy, is probably why we hunt and collect so many tchotchkes related to versions of ourselves we can never receive again except as ghostly hallucinations, by the turn of the planchette. Kept, of course, in an old chest of drawers.

Samuel Te Kani (Ngapuhi), Tamaki Makaurau/Auckland

‘Decor’ is on display at Treadler until 15 August 2024.

Please note macrons in the Te Reo Maori terms do not appear on this webpage.

How Mangala Bai Maravi is preserving the Baiga art of tattooing

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Mangala Bai Maravi was born in Lalpur, a small village in the Dindori district of Madhya Pradesh, India. The daughter of Shanti Bai Maravi, a well-known Baiga tattoo artist from Lalpur, Mangala has developed an interesting way to revive and preserve Baiga tattoo culture by translating tribal tattoo designs on to paper and canvas. This has not been done before. Historically, the designs were passed down through oral tradition, or worked on from memory. Mangala’s innovative works on papers and canvas are keeping her Baiga tradition alive and have drawn international attention to the distinctive tattoos and culture of the Baiga people, while also providing a dependable source of income for her family.

At just seven years old, Mangala took an oath to learn everything she could about her own traditions and culture from her mother. By the time she was twelve, Mangala’s sole dream was that it would be her, out of all her brothers and sisters, who would carry on the Godna tradition of tattooing.

Throughout her life, Mangala has always been interested to discover more about the stories behind every symbol and motif of her ritual patterns. She perfected the tattooing technique after many years of training with and learning from her mother, who passed everything she knew down to Mangala. In the Baiga tribe, only women can carry this tradition ahead. When travelling with her mother, Mangala started to learn how to paint on canvas and paper. She then fused this knowledge with her tattooing technique.

The motifs of Baiga tattoos are primarily inspired by the natural world. Patterns of triangular lines depict mountains, while the circular motif of the sun is often a central feature. Symmetrical lines, which vary in thickness, and dots and crosses are the other major shapes that recur in Baiga tattoos.

Baiga women often have elaborate tattoos on multiple body parts, including on their forehead, arms, legs, back, neck and breasts. Different parts of the body are adorned to mark different milestones in life. The forehead tattoo is done around puberty to mark entry into adulthood. Arms and legs are completed by the time a woman is considered of an age appropriate for marriage. These tattoos are linked with ideas of beauty, healing and history. They are also believed to be carried into the afterlife because the ink integrates with the body itself.

Mangala is doing everything possible to keep this tradition of India alive. I believe Mangala has the courage and strength to make the Baiga people’s Godna tradition approachable for everyone around the world who is interested in learning about this art form and willing to approach it with love and respect.

Amit Arjel-Sharma

Amit Arjel-Sharma is an artist assistant to Baiga artist Mangala Bai Maravi. Both were recently in residence at the University of Sydney, where they worked on a series of paintings that were displayed at the Chau Chak Wing Museum and White Bay Power Station as part of the 24th Biennale of Sydney. Amit is both a close friend of and a translator for Mangala, having spent years working with and learning the ways of the Baiga. Amit shares Mangala’s story here with her input and permission.

This article was originally published in Art Monthly Australasia’s special edition about the 24th Biennale of Sydney. Purchase a copy here.

'Robert Fielding: NYARU’ at Canberra Glassworks

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Robert Fielding’s exhibition ‘NYARU’ at the Canberra Glassworks is a powerful showcase of culture, innovation and reclamation. Fielding is a celebrated multi-disciplinary artist of Pakistani, Afghan, Western Arrernte and Yankunytjatjara heritage and lives in the Mimili Community in the remote Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in South Australia.

Fielding has used glass, metal and mirrors to create this new body of work, which he developed as part of a residency at Canberra Glassworks in 2023. ‘NYARU’ begins with a cluster of discarded and reclaimed car doors, their metal or glass windows painted and sandblasted to create words, or cultural or landscape designs. His work Kultuni (spear right through) (2024), a single car door, sits at the centre of the room facing the entrance. It greets audiences with a glass spear penetrating the body of the door, emerging on the other side. Although glass is fragile by nature, this thick spear represents strength, power and culture, as does any traditional wooden spear.

A recurring subject in Fielding’s practice since 2016, the mutuka katalypa (car wrecks) tell overlooked or forgotten stories, particularly from his Mimili Community. Each door offers an insight into Community life and into Fielding’s innovative vision to recycle, upcycle, repurpose and reclaim discarded vehicle parts to create engaging and beautiful artworks. The artist wants audiences to consider the importance of the car, the stories they hold and their persistent abandoned presence out on Country. These doors also honour the important role cars have in enabling families living in remote Communities to attend ceremonies and visit Country.

In the connecting corridor between the exhibition’s two rooms, Fielding’s work Puruni (to press against) (2024) features impressions of objects with minor ochre detailing, embossed into white paper, providing a visual break. The corridor leads audiences to Fielding’s final work, his pièce de résistance, Kapi iili (steady rain) (2024), a large-scale installation featuring dozens of transparent spears hovering over a mirrored floor. The reflective effect of the artwork creates an optical illusion of movement, as if spears are raining down upon the viewer. A singular spear also sits central to the mirrored floor and stabs into it, creating tension as the shattered fragments of mirror distort all reflections. The overall effect is mesmerising.

Fielding’s use of words in conjunction with his physical artworks is another device he uses to articulate and share his thoughts, cultural knowledge or histories. He is a natural wordsmith, offering both poems and contextual information to provide a sense of balance to the artworks occupying the space.

‘NYARU’ demonstrates Fielding’s embrace of glass as medium to create stunning, engaging and strong cultural contemporary artworks. Together they embody life, identity, culture, history and experience. Fielding’s father, Bruce Fielding, was a member of the Stolen Generation, which Fielding references in much of his work. In this exhibition, he also subtly responds to the momentous 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice Referendum and the subsequent ‘No’ vote through his exploration of unity, equality, past and present, and fragility and resilience.

The power glass gives to Fielding’s practice cannot be overstated. Despite being an inherently fragile medium, glass actively portrays the artist’s deep cultural practice and strong natural ability. The artist residency at the Canberra Glassworks has provided many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists with the opportunity to experiment, innovate and learn new skills working with the medium.

Fielding’s works in ‘NYARU’ are breathtaking. His natural ability, keen vision, thoughtful intellect and innate creativity have culminated in a stunning and powerful representation of culture and contemporary Community life. The exhibition is truly inspirational.

Tina Baum, Gulumirrgin (Larrakia)/Wardaman/Karajarri, Senior Curator, First Nations Art at the National Gallery of Australia

Co-curated by Erin Vink (Ngiyampaa) and Aimee Frodsham, ‘Robert Fielding: NYARU’is on display at the Canberra Glassworks in partnership with Mimili Maku Arts until 21 July 2024.

Erin Vink is Chair of Art Monthly Australasia.

The importance of narrative sovereignty

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‘Indigenous peoples are the First Peoples of this country. We have a right to be shown.’
– Gail Mabo

First and foremost, I am the sum of my ancestors, hailing from ancient lineages of the Gurindji/Malngin, Pertame Arrernte and Worimi nations of the continent of Australia and the Baloch people of the Middle East. My skin name is Mpetyane. This is my identity among my people, one I share with all other Mpetyane. It determines my relationship with Altyerre, our creation story, and with everyone and everything around me. I state this here because my cultural heritage and identity are crucial to my work as a filmmaker.

I am the co-founder and creative director of GARUWA, a wholly Aboriginal-owned creative agency dedicated to sharing First Nations culture and stories in the right way, with community at the fore. The films that I produce follow protocols around cultural safety that draw on ancient traditions of respect, relationality and reciprocity that are embedded in my diverse lineage—and in many First Nations cultures. I feel a deep responsibility when translating First Nations art and culture to the screen. Indigenous peoples have been stereotyped and subject to bias, misrepresentation and cruelty in media going back centuries. The media has played a huge role in shaping narratives that have championed colonial perspectives, and justified violence and dispossession. But running counter to this dark history is another story: the long tradition of Indigenous artists and storytellers pushing back against colonial narratives and setting the record straight, in their own words. 

Both our own people and wider audiences need to understand and experience First Nations perspectives and worldviews. Narrative sovereignty—having the power to tell our own story on our own terms—is integral to this. There is no one better placed to tell our stories than us. Without a deep understanding of the nuances of Indigenous cultures, there is a risk that stories about First Nations peoples will fall into the trap of being clichéd, extractive and exploitative—as much media representation of Indigenous peoples has been throughout history.

I am currently working on a series of 14 short documentaries, one about each of the First Nations artists who were commissioned by the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain to make new work for the 24th Biennale of Sydney. The opportunity to document the incredible work of these artists from across the globe is exciting, but it is also nerve-wracking, as I have a duty of care to each of these individuals and their unique creative practices. Telling an artist’s story through film is no easy task. An artist’s work is the ultimate representation of their identity, their creative response to their experience of the world around them. One of the big questions facing me with this project is: how can I translate these artists’ creative talents to the screen?

Another question I had was: how can I accurately and respectfully capture and communicate each of the artists’ cultural traditions? The artists come from around the world. Among them are Cristina Flores Pescorán, whose work is inspired by Peru’s Indigenous Chancay culture; Baiga artist Mangala Bai Maravi, who is based in central India; and Dylan Mooney, a Yuwi, Torres Strait and Australian South Sea Islander man, to give some idea of the diversity of First Nations cultures represented. Going into the project, I had knowledge of some of the artists’ traditions, but not all—yet it was my responsibility to capture them all on film.  

With that in mind, I began the process of making these films with intentional relationship building. I exchanged details of positionality, personal stories, cultural tales and more with the artists, allowing our relationships to evolve naturally and organically. A good yarn creates an opportunity for connection before the cameras start rolling, which results in the sharing of more meaningful stories. The making of these films has reaffirmed my belief that, while our contexts are not the same, there exists a deep camaraderie between Indigenous peoples around the globe. There are commonalities between us, including shared experiences of resistance, a commitment to the revitalisation of our cultures and a belief in the power of storytelling to improve the plight of our peoples. It has been a privilege to learn about these artists’ perspectives and artistic processes from a position of intercultural understanding. I feel honoured that they have all placed such great trust in me to tell their stories.

This anthology of documentaries we are producing is a co-production between GARUWA and our friends at Entropico, an international production company. The films are being made by a diverse team of creatives, including one of Australia’s best cinematographers, Tyson Perkins (Eastern Arrernte/Kalkadoon). Tyson and I chose to shoot in various formats—Super8, 16mm and digital—to create a visual language that spoke to the artists’ diverse voices, as well as the myriad histories and traditions upon which they draw. We have involved the artists in the creative process from the beginning to ensure that they have ownership of their stories. This collaborative process has resulted in a wonderful series of films. I cannot wait to share them with the world.

Kieran Mpetyane Satour (Gurindji/Pertame/Worimi)

Kieran Mpetyane Satour’s documentaries about the First Nations artists commissioned by the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain to make work for the 24th Biennale of Sydney will be released later this year.

This article was originally published in Art Monthly Australasia’s special edition about the 24th Biennale of Sydney. Purchase a copy here.

What is ‘Wilderness Ideology’ and why is it problematic?

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Wilderness Ideology has emerged from the fields of land management and conservation, but its effects are seen and felt in the arts. In short, it’s the idea that true wildernesses are untouched by people and should largely remain so. In the context of conservation organisations, this does not seem like a bad thing. However, it can lead to an overemphasis on landscapes being vacant, effectively removing people—especially First Nations people, who have lived on and cared for Country for millennia—from the picture, even if we are still present. It’s a contemporary expression of terra nullius.

In 2012, Professor Marcia Langton addressed the subject at length in ‘The Conceit of Wilderness Ideology’, a talk she delivered as part of the Boyer Lectures series. Langton explained: ‘Aboriginal land is targeted both by mining companies and conservation campaigners precisely because it is Aboriginal land. These vast areas owned by Aboriginal people are the repository of Australia’s mega-diversity of flora, fauna and ecosystems because of the ancient Aboriginal system of management, and because Aboriginal people fought to protect their territories from white incursion. They are not wilderness areas—they are Aboriginal homelands, shaped over millennia by Aboriginal people.’

In the art world, Wilderness Ideology can be seen in the contemporary art market’s positioning of Country as something of a “Dreamtime” place. Today, there is the expectation that Indigenous artists will portray Country, but there is not always a proper understanding of the reality that First Nations artists actually live on Country and are intrinsically connected to it. These misconceptions of First Nations peoples’ relationships with their homelands are rooted in the history of the forced displacement of Australia’s Indigenous people from their Country and on to missions, reserves and stations.

Coming from Mapoon, and being a Teppathiggi and Tjungundji man from the Western Cape of Cape York, my own lived experience as an artist has shown me the immense importance that Country and on-Country practices bear in our daily lives. Today, a number of Cape York-based First Nations artists are challenging the art market’s framing of Indigenous peoples—especially artists—as spectators of Country, rather than part of it. They are doing so the way our people always have: by remaining, and by showing we remain.

The late and great Granny Mavis Ngallametta (a cousin of my Grandmother, Jean Little OAM) led the charge. She—and at a similar time, Naomi Hobson—established a visual tradition depicting Country precisely, while also incorporating elements of purposeful “abstraction” to disguise the sacredness and hidden knowledge linked with a place. Over time, the more truly abstract and minimalist works of artists from the Lockhart River Art Gang came to the fore, as did the Hope Vale painters’ depictions of their township. What Granny Mavis and these other artists did—and what some are still doing—was to showcase their Country itself as well as their deep and inexplicable connections to their lands. Visual art is the medium through which these artists and Lorekeepers prove First Nations peoples’ place on and within Country, which is an important response to Wilderness Ideology’s attempt to divorce people from place.

Informed by a—perhaps subconscious—Wilderness Ideology, players in the art market still cater to the non-Indigenous thirst for First Nations artworks that maintain the image of an untouched, sunburnt land. Kowanyama artist Tania Major, a proud Kokoberra woman, has spoken to me in the past of the noticeable absence of Blak peoples in First Nations artists’ own works—especially those from remote and regional areas. In answer to this, Tania and her fellow Kowanyama artists have frequently shown portraits in many forms at the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair.

Tania herself is a decorated artist, having won the CIAF Innovation Art Award in 2022 for her painting Dragon Flys Everywhere: Coming Into The Dry Season (2022). Structurally, Tania’s dragonfly painting is innovative and offers a psychedelic view of Country, as though viewing the tangible and sustaining land through the spirit world. When looking at Tania’s work, the paintings of Uncle Syd Bruce Shortjoe (who is a proud Wik-Iiyanh man of the Wik Mynah people) from Pormpuraaw also spring to mind. To me, his works typify a unique school of landscape painting, which seems to only come from the Western Cape of Cape York Peninsula. There’s a multidimensional quality to his paintings and his works on paper: they appear as if you are looking simultaneously at, floating above and sitting within any given landscape. Granny Nita Yunkaporta from Aurukun (a Wik-Mungkan Elder) is another superb artist with a similar approach. In fact, this emerging school likely came from the women artists of Aurukun, including Granny Mavis Ngallametta.

The key factor in the landscape works of cousin Tania, Uncle Sid and Granny Nita is that they often feature their/our own peoples (or at least glimpses of them/us) living and working on the land—as do works by Wanda Gibson, Gertie Deeral, Daisy Hamlot and Dr Bernard Singleton. All these artists’ works are culturally authoritative and position First Nations people as part and parcel of Country, which is a riposte to Wilderness Ideology. The works of these great artists remind audiences of our eternal presence on our homelands, across our Country, while also celebrating the beauty and vibrancy of the bush.

Jack Wilkie-Jans (Teppathiggi/Tjungundji), Gimuy/Cairns

Jack Wilkie-Jans is a multi-disciplinary artist, arts worker, writer and an Aboriginal affairs advocate.

Inside Archie Moore’s ‘kith and kin’—the exhibition that won the Golden Lion at the 60th Venice Biennale

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I step into the dark, quiet space and find myself surrounded by thousands of Ancestors, their names written in white chalk on blackboard paint covering the walls and ceiling, all of them engulfing me in a giant family tree. The names look down on me like stars in the deep night sky.

In front of me is what first looks like a model of the cityscape, but upon closer inspection is revealed to be piles of documents, reports of the deaths in custody of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia. I pause and look deep into the pool of reflection at the foot of this table of documents. I stand there and contemplate this immense exhibition, ‘kith and kin,’ by Kamilaroi and Bigambul artist Archie Moore, which has been curated by Ellie Buttrose for the Australia Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale.

I walk around the walls, reading each name, tracing each connection. Nestled in this First Nations family tree, I find moments where missing people’s histories have been erased, the chalk rubbed out and faded, or deep black holes where no information exists at all. Some boxes feature crude names that were used in the past to incorrectly label and identify Indigenous people. I recognise one – ‘half-caste’ – a term that was placed upon me as a child, and one I firmly reject.

Some boxes are simply not filled – these people’s names are absent, yet their absence speaks loudly. I reach the centre of the room and the box marked “me.”  The story of Archie begins here. On one side, there is the neatly arranged family tree of his father’s British and Scottish heritage. On the other, his mother’s Kamilaroi and Bigambul family forms a beautiful flowing current of names, lines and interconnected kinship relationships. This Indigenous family tree grows and spreads throughout the exhibition space, reaching the heights of the ceiling and fading into its dark abyss.

Evidence of Archie’s research into his genealogy is incredibly impressive. Through his years of investigation, he has accumulated more information than many institutions hold. I tried to imagine Archie’s journey with this work, from obtaining information about his maternal great-grandmother, Jane Clevin, from the anthropologist Norman Tindale, to venturing into the depths of state and federal archives. The journey to obtain the information and also to hold it, in his heart and spirit, must have been incredibly heavy.

My gaze falls from the dark ceiling down to the bright white piles of documents, some stamped with the seal of the crown, many of which feature ‘just’ another name on a piece of paper, another Indigenous death in custody, another family member lost – an all too familiar story for First Nations people. The documents hover above the dark pool of reflection. It is as though they sit above the tears of all those families and Ancestors that surround me. Some of the names are from my community. I feel a deep sense of loss.

As I mourn, sparkles of light catch my eye. They dance on the walls through a small, floor-level window that lets the sparkling reflection from the waters of Venetian canals in, connecting this sacred space to the waters outside, and onwards to the waters of home. I find comfort that those waters are reflected in this space. I feel hopeful that through the power of art and Archie’s remarkable work, our stories are now being shared beyond Australia, and are connecting us with other Indigenous peoples around the world.

This is my second visit to the space. The first was jarring because I entered during the launch of the exhibition. It was filled with people yarning and laughing, doing what we have come to expect from an exhibition opening. However, this was not your typical exhibition. I stood at the top of the display, solemn as I considered the juxtaposition of the endless names of Indigenous people who have died, set against the packed space of people celebrating. It did not feel right to me. However, that is the machinery of an exhibition launch. I understand why these events happen – and there was much to celebrate.

What is evident throughout the exhibition is the collaborative nature in which the work was brought together, with the support of Elder Bandjalung creative Djon Mundine; the considered exhibition design of Kaurareg and Meriam architect Kevin O’Brien; and the backing of Creative Australia, which commissioned the work. Ellie, from the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, has curated the exhibition with care and sensitivity. The complementary and collaborative nature of these relationships manifest themselves in this exceptionally thoughtful, heart-swelling exhibition.

‘kith and kin’ won the biennale’s prestigious Golden Lion award for Best National Participation. This is the first time in history an Australian artist has received this accolade. Congratulations to Archie, Ellie and the Creative Australia team on this deeply moving exhibition.

Peggy Kasabad Lane (Saibai Koedal Awagadhalayg), Venice

Peggy Kasabad Lane is the First Nations Curator at Court House Gallery and Tanks Arts Centre, Cairns, and attended the Venice Biennale as part of the (re)situateBiennale Delegates program run by Creative Australia.

Curated by Ellie Buttrose, ‘kith and kin’ by Archie Moore continues at the Australia Pavilion, Venice until 24 November 2024.