The road to Pormpuraaw
Filmmaker Peter Hylands writes about a recent visit to the remote Pormpuraaw Art Centre in Far North Queensland. Here he talks with artist Sid Bruce Short Joe who speaks nine languages, the ninth is English.
More from this Issue
String theory: Karen Mills
Michelle Culpitt examines the work practice of Northern Territory artist Karen Mills whose paintings are inspired by the string bags made by the women weavers of Arnhem Land. Culpitt writes: "The articulation of her painterly vision is only possible at the nexus of her experience and influences as an Aboriginal woman in contemporary Australia, a place of both deep connection and belonging to country, and also disjuncture and dislocation from a nation in denial of its own history."
Jimmy Pike: there is more
Curator and writer Karen Dayman fills in the background of the development of the work and broadens the profile of Great Sandy Desert artist Jimmy Pike whose skills took him around the world and into collaborations with Desert Designs, with his partner Pat Lowe and with the theatre.
Toward Indigenous Criticism: The Ah Kee paradox
Métis artist, curator and academic David Garneau explores the current situation of indigenous art through increasing global links and connections.
NUNGAODRADEK - AEAF 2013
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.
Mouths and Meaning Bronwyn Platten, Sarah Coggrave and others
Australian Experimental Art Foundation Adelaide 1 February – 2 March 2013
Pamela Anne Johnston Dahl-Helm (1947–2013)
Pam was a proud Bundjalung woman. An artist, mother, grandmother, sister and friend to many, a long-term resident of Sydney’s Woolloomooloo, she was a true leftie, advocating for social justice, equality and the rights of minority groups.
Good Medicine
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.
The limits of criticism
Anthropologist John Carty casts his eyes over the last ten years of writing on Desert art, mostly in newspapers, and finds many cliches and inconsistencies. He asks: "Where are the fine-grained localised art histories, the rich biographies of our most interesting and important individual artists? Where are their voices?" And replies: "They are still waiting in the Desert."
tough(er) love: art from Eyre Peninsula
Curator: John Neylon Flinders University Art Museum 28 February – 28 April 2013
