Indigenous: Indignation

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Guest co-editors Stephanie Radok and Daniel Browning

Second in annual mega-issue series, survey of new developments in the field. Artists and writers speak out on injustice past and present, Blak queer, lateral damage and forgiveness, new art, debates, exhibitions, projects, publications and the need for a new national Indigenous art museum. Authors include Djon Mundine, John Kean, Hetti Perkins, Garry Jones, Maurice O'Riordan, Dianne Jones, Gay McDonald, Brenda Croft, Una Rey, Sam Cook. Features on Archie Moore, Alick Tipoti, Troy Anthony Baylis, Nici Cumpston, Bindi Cole. Ghostnets, early Papunya boards, cultural diplomacy in The 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial, and exhibitions in China of Jason Wing, John Bulun Bulun and Zhou Xiaoping, plus Tu Di - Shen Ti/Our Land Our Body from Warburton Art Centre are featured.

Topic list: indigenous culture.

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Articles in Vol 32 no 2, 2012

Archie Moore: drilling deep

Artist profile by Timothy Morrell

Freelance curator and writer Tim Morrell studies the art practice of Brisbane-based Archie Moore which is emphatically free from any signature style and is concerned with sharing his experience as an Indigenous Australian in order to put viewers 'in his shoes'. — More »

Presences in the land: Nici Cumpston

Artist profile by Una Rey

Adelaide-based artist and curator Nici Cumpston's work is examined by Newcastle-based artist and curator Una Rey. Cumpston's work studies her family and ancestral history as well as being inextricably concerned with environmental issues. — More »

Queerly speaking

Artist profile by Troy-Anthony Baylis

The art practice of Troy-Anthony Baylis uses knitting, performance, collage and other 'crafts' to engages with queering as a strategy, to unsettle the ways that Aboriginality is constructed as pure and untainted by the complexity of sexuality, mixed ethnographies, mixed geographies and mixed appearances. — More »

The performative print: Alick Tipoti's Girelal

Artist profile by Jan Hogan

Torres Strait Islander artist Alick Tipoti has developed a rigorous and passionate art practice to ensure the maintenance and survival of his cultural traditions. Printmaker Jan Hogan explores the making and the experience of Tipoti's 8 metre long linocut Girelal hung in the 18th Biennale of Sydney 2012. — More »

Making History

Editorial by Stephanie Radok

Stephanie Radok takes the temperature of Aboriginal art and history in 2012. — More »

®ECLAIMED Closing the gap of radical apathy

Editorial by Daniel Browning

Daniel Browning takes a long hard look at the gap of apathy in Australia. — More »

A place of our own

Feature by Daniel Browning

This conversation between curator Hetti Perkins and co-editor Daniel Browning looks at Perkins call for a National Institution, or Centre, of Indigenous Art, which might become, as she puts it, "a living space that breathes culture". — More »

Ancestral memory: out of the shadows

Feature by Fran Edmonds

University of Melbourne Research Fellow Fran Edmonds along with Victorian artists Lee Darroch, Maree Clarke and Vicki Couzens looks at the story of Aboriginal art in Victoria as a determined reclamation of the past, a cross-generational celebration in the present and a visionary guide for the future. — More »

Big wave: Desert Country

Feature by John Kean

Legendary curator John Kean looks at three recent large exhibitions of Aboriginal art - Tjukurrtjanu: Origins of Western Desert Art, Desert Country and Living Water, and questions whether the same spirit sings in all of them. — More »

Culture Warriors as cultural diplomacy

Feature by Gay McDonald

Senior lecturer at the College of Fine Arts (CoFA), University of New South Wales, Gail McDonald analyses the exhibition Culture Warriors, the first National Indigenous Art Triennial curated by Brenda L. Croft, that travelled to Washington in 2009. McDonald argues that, rather than diplomatic blandness, real political confrontation was present in the exhibition. — More »

For architecture and country

Feature by Kevin O'Brien

Torres Strait Islander Kevin O'Brien, who is commissioning and directing an independent exhibition called 'Finding Country' at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2012 running from August to 25 November 2012, writes about an Aboriginal architecture that is not about buildings shaped like native animals. — More »

I Forgive You: Bindi Cole's seventy times seven

Feature by Bruce McLean

Bruce McLean, Curator of Indigenous Art at the Queensland Art Gallery/ Gallery of Modern Art, writes about Bindi Cole's work and how it links personal and historical notions of forgiveness. — More »

Lateral Violence is an Indigenous arts thing

Feature by Sam Cook

Sam Cook is an artist, educator and currently the Director of The Dreaming: Australia's International Indigenous Festival. She writes incisively about the deep layers of 'lateral violence' in the Indigenous arts sector. — More »

Long Way Home: A celebration of 21 years of Yunggorendi First Nations Centre

Feature by Ali Baker

Yunggorendi First Nations Centre for Higher Education and Research at Flinders University, celebrated 21 years of operation in 2011 with an exhibition of work selected by staff and students from the collection of Flinders University Art Museum. Artist Ali Gumillya Baker critically reviews selected works in the exhibition and the issues they raise. — More »

No Place without Other Places: Spinifex Arts Project at fifteen years

Feature by Darren Jorgensen

University of Western Australia lecturer Darren Jorgensen examine the Spinifex Arts Project from its inception with reference to a new exhibition happening August-October 2012 at John Curtin Gallery and asks the big question: "What would it mean if Aboriginal artists were not tied to language groups, communities, art centres and regional styles?" — More »

Postcards from China

Feature by Jason Wing

Multi-disciplinary artists Jason Wing, who has both Aboriginal and Chinese forebears, undertook a residency in Xucun, a remote village in China, where Chinese artists Qu Yuan and Shen Shaomin have established the Xucun Art Commune in order to protect the village's beauty and heritage. — More »

Reviewing Our Mob: A state-wide celebration of South Australian Indigenous art

Feature by Susan Jenkins

Our Mob is a state-wide celebration of South Australian Indigenous art held annually at the Adelaide Festival Centre since 2006. Curator Susan Jenkins who worked on it for three years from 2009-2011 analyses what works about Our Mob and what the future might be. — More »

Sitting & connecting: Goulburn Art Class 2-0-1-1

Feature by Maurice O'Riordan

Goulburn Class 2-0-1-1 was an exhibition curated by Djon Mundine at the Goulburn Regional Art Gallery of work made by prisoners at the local Correction Centre in response to ten one day workshops in the prison by seven Aboriginal artists whose work was also in the show. Writer and editor Maurice O'Riordan reviews the exhibition and more importantly the processes it involved. — More »

Tandanya: the case for home

Feature by Sara White

The National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, known as Tandanya, was established in 1989 in Adelaide. Philip Watkins, Artistic and Cultural Director of Tandanya, 2006-2011, said: "This is Tandanya's role - to show our world through our eyes, to tell our stories and to sing our songs with our voices." Curator, educator and writer Sara White reviews Tandanya's 23 years of art and asks "Does Australia need more Tandanyas?" — More »

The Ballad of Jimmy Governor

Feature by Djon Mundine

Emeritus Indigenous curator Djon Mundine wrote this essay on the occasion of a production of Posts in the Paddock a play about Jimmy Governor by the company My Darling Patricia. The performance included members of the both families involved. Mundine addresses questions of familial and national forgiveness. — More »

The elephant in the room: public art in Brisbane

Feature by Fiona Foley

Artist-activist Fiona Foley recounts a recent incident of the commissioning of a public art work for Kurilpa (place of the kuril or native water rat). Kurilpa is the cultural precinct where GOMA is located. Foley imagines works by prominent Queensland Aboriginal artists dotted along that place. — More »

The Ghost Net art project

Feature by Sue Ryan

Program Director for Ghost Nets Australia Sue Ryan describes how the Ghost Net Art Project began and what it is all about - people using eco-trash to share stories and express their creativity. — More »

Trepang: crossing cultures / creating connections

By Artlink

by Alison Inglis and Susan Lowish — More »

Trepang: Crossing cultures, creating connections

Feature by Susan Lowish

The exhibition 'Trepang: China & the story of Macassan-Aboriginal trade' opened in the Capital Museum, Beijing on 1 April 2011 and at the Melbourne Museum on 23 July 2011. Melbourne-based academics Susan Lowish and Alison Inglis describe the exhibition's genesis and some of the issues that it raises in terms of cultures, history and collaboration. — More »

Tu Di Shen Ti, Our Land Our Body: the Ngaanyatjarra poetic goes to China

Feature by Gary Proctor

The exhibition 'Tu Di Shen Ti - Our Land Our Body, Masterworks of the Warburton Collection', was seen in China by about a quarter of a million people, across seven venues, throughout 2011. Director of the Warburton Arts Project Gary Proctor describes how the exhibition came about, what it looked like and what its goal are. — More »

Issue Index

Indigenous: Indignation

Articles in Vol 32 no 2, 2012

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