Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Thursday 16 September
6:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Location
wheelercentre.com
The continuation of Aboriginal art and cultural practices has been vital in the ongoing resistance to colonisation in Australia. Since European colonisation, various practices have been historically denied and disrupted, and the knowledge of many techniques has been lost.
Yorta Yorta/Wamba Wamba/Mutti Mutti/Boonwurrung artist and designer Maree Clarke has played a pivotal role in reviving south-east Australian Aboriginal art and cultural practices, by creating works which place them in conversation with contemporary art practices and ideas.
This panel discussion brings together artists, writers and curators whose work, like Clarke’s, engages with lost or dormant elements of Aboriginal culture. Clarke – whose exhibition Ancestral Memories is currently showing at NGV – will be joined by Myles Russell-Cook, Acting Senior Curator of Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Victoria, and Claire G Coleman, author of Terra Nullius, The Old Lie and Lies, Damned Lies.
Together, they’ll explore the resilience of traditional Indigenous art and storytelling practices, the role of creatives in reviving culture, and how research, interpretation and curation of Indigenous art can ensure that knowledge continues to be protected from colonisation.
Presented in partnership with the National Gallery of Victoria
The online bookseller for this event is Hill of Content Bookshop
Featuring
Maree Clarke
Maree Clarke is a Yorta Yorta/Wamba Wamba/Mutti Mutti/Boonwurrung woman who grew up in northwest Victoria, mainly in Mildura, on the banks of the Murray River. Maree has been a practicing artist living and working in Melbourne for the last three decades and is a pivotal figure in the reclamation of southeast Australian Aboriginal art practices, reviving elements of Aboriginal culture that were lost – or laying dormant - over the period of colonisation. Maree is known for her open and collaborative approach to cultural practice.
Maree’s continuing desire to affirm and reconnect with her cultural heritage has seen her revification of the traditional possum skin cloaks, together with the production of contemporary designs of kangaroo teeth necklaces, river reed necklaces and multi media installations of photography including lenticular prints, 3D photographs and photographic holograms as well as painting, sculpture and video installation further explore the customary ceremonies, rituals and language of her ancestors and reveal her long held ambitions to facilitate cross-cultural dialogue about the ongoing effects of colonisation, while simultaneously providing space for the Aboriginal community to engage with and ‘mourn’ the impact of dispossession and loss.
Maree Clarke was awarded the Linewide Commission for the Metro Tunnel project (current) and is the recipient of the 2020 Australia Council Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Fellowship. Her major survey exhibition Ancestral Memories is currently showing at the National Gallery of Victoria’s Australian Galleries at Federation Square, Melbourne, until October 2021.
Claire G. Coleman
Claire G. Coleman is a Noongar woman whose family have belonged to the south coast of Western Australia since long before history started being recorded. Claire writes fiction, essays, poetry and art writing while either ...
Myles Russell-Cook
Myles is the Senior Curator of Australian and First Nations Art at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). Myles is responsible for the NGV’s collections of Australian Art, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art and the Art of Oceania ...
Daniel James
Born in Melbourne and raised on Taungurong country in North East Victoria, Daniel is a Yorta Yorta Melbourne based writer and broadcaster. He is the winner of the 2018 Horne Prize for his essay Ten More Days. Daniel is ...