18 November - 8 December 2020
Curated by Wanjun Carpenter
In the inescapable heat of summer, some afternoons provide a change in the breeze that brings relief. “Gnurra Gooah Yewi”(South East Wind) is a small summoning of that breeze – the cool change that cuts through the unyielding sweat. Displaying works from Dale Collier (Wiradjuri), Tim Buchanan (Wiradjuri), and Wanjun Carpenter (Gunggandji), it is an exhibition situated in the context of the continual struggle for Aboriginal recognition and for Aboriginal histories, voices, and stories to be heard.
SELECTED WORKS BY WANJUN CARPENTER
Wanjun Carpenter, You don't look like a blackfella 2019. Photograph taken on 135 Ilford Hp5 plus 400, printed on Ilford smooth pearl 300 gsm, UV printed museum acrylic.
This image explored social stereotypes that revolve around Indigenous identity. How are Indigenous people perceived in the context of the broader community and how does it, how has it and how can change? Often the idea of Aboriginal identity revolves around possessing certain traits, looks, behaviours and values – creating a mould born from social constructs. Questions of authenticity are often asked when an Indigenous person doesn’t fit that mould. This piece aims to challenge social norms and expectations that misconstrue Aboriginal identity by focussing in on one indigenous person, Tim Buchanan, a Wiradjuri man living in Melbourne.
Wanjun Carpenter, The admiralty is dead 2020. Handmade paper, custom acrylic frame, ferrosol soil.
Aboriginal land has never been ceded; the colonialist mentality and structural systems that have grown out of it and continue to marginalise Indigenous people are alive and well - yet growing more and more contested. The paper, locked and preserved behind plexiglass, is made from prints of Additional Instructions for Lt James Cook, the letter sent to James Cook by the Admiralty prior to his voyage to Australia. Shredded, pulverised and reformed into a semi-complete state, it signifies the death of the old and that right now something new is in the process of forming. The earth below, smothering chunks of the mashed-up document, reminds us of where it is this change occurs (on country), and where it should come from (from indigenous ways of knowing that have been so long repressed).
Wanjun Carpenter, BLM March 05.06.2020 (2020). Digital images printed on plan paper.
This series of images are a documentation of the Black Lives Matter movement in Newcastle, Australia. Taken on the 5th July 2020, thousands of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people took to the streets in protest of black deaths in custody and the ongoing dispossession of Aboriginal people from country. This movement, captured here by photographs, is a push for systemic change not only in Australia but for all Indigenous populations across our Earth. “Always Was Always Will Be Aboriginal Land”.
