My Country, I Still Call Australia Home: Interview with Bruce McLean
On curating My Country, I Still Call Australia Home: Contemporary Art from Black Australia, opening at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane on 1 June 2013.
Curator and Associate Director of Taiwan Culture and Creative Platform Foundation Antoanetta Ivanovna, resident in Taiwan since 2011, discusses the travelling exhibition Shadowlife curated by Djon Mundine and Natalie King, and its impact in Taiwan where consciousness of their indigenous people is not as developed as it is in Australia.
Yorta Yorta and Wiradjuri curator and lecturer Jirra Harvey traces the career of self-taught graffiti and studio artist Reko Rennie. He uses a traditional Kamilaroi patterning in neon and in graffiti as a contemporary statement of sovereignity. Harvey says: "The subtext to such works is a running narrative on government practices that work to control and restrain Aboriginal communities and the subsequent rebellion of the people."
Being Aboriginal doesn’t make you wise, spiritual or even good at art. Being Aboriginal is historical just like being any other nationality or ethnicity. All art can be examined ethnographically, all people can be examined ethnographically.
Assistant Curator of Indigenous Heritage Collections at the Macleay Museum Matt Poll writes a thoughtful, engaging and detailed account of the life and art of Harry Wedge, known as 'Big H' in his home community in Cowra. Poll says:" Harry’s artistic career remained an enigma to those closest to him throughout his life. His work is an exemplary case of an Australian outsider art – though not in the conventional definition."
odradek is a window exhibition space at the Australian Experimental Art Foundation in Adelaide. nungaodradek is a season of works by four emerging nunga (Aboriginal) artists based in South Australia curated by Ali Gumillya Baker. Their overall theme is sovereign protest.