Healing Arts and Decolonisation: aboriginal art

Showing posts with label aboriginal art. Show all posts

Monday, December 31, 2018

Camp Freedom versus the StolenWealth Games

Camp Freedom versus the StolenWealth Games

'We wanted to make it clear to the mob, make it clear to the world, make it clear to our people, that we are here, and we're here, and we're standing strong. And we don't want nothin', we don't want nothin' of the Commonwealth here. They've stolen the land, built this country on Stolen Wages, built this country on the blood and bones of our people, and it's about time that history is acknowledged. And it's about time them royal families who are responsible for it all, they come down here, they get on our level. They ask to be here on our country, that's what needs to happen.'
(Wharton 2018)

Camp Freedom is the name of the base protest site set up by Aboriginal Activists for the 2018 Commonwealth Games held at on Yugambeh Land at Moondarewa at the Gold Coast in Queensland, and still lives on in our consciousness. Camp Freedom was a place to gather, a place to organise protest actions, a place to visit, a place to swim, a place for cultural performances and creativity, a place to rest, and mostly significant because we don't generally have access to these kinds of public spaces in Australia. The young Warriors of Aboriginal Resistance (WAR) and other organisers worked with Yugambeh Traditional Owners, the bureaucracy of the local City Council, Police and government officials for years before the Games started, to secure a permit for the site and ensure facilities for campers and visitors. It drew people from all over the world, and from all walks of life, including parents of athletes in The Games, who wanted to understand more about the Aboriginal experience of living under colonial oppression. Everyone involved seemed to take it seriously. One main thing that Camp Freedom still advocates for, is that of a Truth Commission to investigate Human Rights abuses, similar to other common mechanisms towards healing past wrongs, such as those initiated in South Africa and Canada (Brahm 2009).

Camp Freedom, Gold Coast 2018

The 2018 Commonwealth Games were held in the Australian State now ironically named Queensland, which has a well known history of being a Police State. However, generally Australia is not known for contemporary Terrorism attacks, and has a relatively smaller population, compared to other large countries. Yet in recent years, Police powers have drastically increased (and accountability decreased) with the hosting of major events, like the 2014 $500 million+ G20 Economic Summit in Brisbane, where Operation Southern Cross saw the introduction of unprecedented stop and search powers, a new state of the art Command Centre (Madden 2014), and now Police no longer have to wear name badges. The strategic incapacitation of the protest “likely to have drawn up to 120,000 people at the G20 summit in Brisbane was reduced to as few as 1,000 because of draconian protest laws, Queensland’s Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC) has been told.” (Baker 2014). Nonetheless this did not stop spending on a 10000 strong Para Military force (Drum Cussac 2018) or ramping up new bunkers (Pierce 2017) and Police powers in time for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, and retaining the use of Facial Recognition Software (Roberts 2018) and increased powers to conduct personal searches without keeping a record now that The Games are over. (Courier Mail 2018). Despite the Police publicly stating that there was no need “I have to reinforce that there is currently no specific threat against the Games or against anything in Queensland” ( Armbruster 2018)

some of the Queensland Police Presence at Australia Fair Shopping Centre, Gold Coast 2018

Aside from the over-the-top uniformed and under cover Police numbers at protests, the perimeters of Camp Freedom were swarming with all sorts of Police all day and night, Helicopters and drones overhead, rubber dinghies on the water, along with dune buggies, horses, motorbikes, pursuit vehicles, buses and surveillance vans. Despite the fact that Camp Freedom actually paid tens of thousands of dollars (B.A.S.E. 2018) to the City of Gold Coast Council for an official permit and bond cost (for Aboriginal people to camp on stolen land), the Police tried to serve Camp Freedom with a fake eviction notice on April 10. When that did not fool the camp, the government also sent in the Department of Childrens Services, The Health Department, The Fire Department, but they were in turn, evicted by the Freedom Campers who cited Sovereign Rights and the Illegal Occupation of Australia (Welcome To Country 2018). 'Camp Freedom has released a “Statement of Reason”, which, highlights our dissent from colonial common law and condemns the continued genocidal actions and illegal occupation of our sacred homelands.' (Hartnett 2018)

screen capture, channel 7 news April 2018

The 2018 Commonwealth Games was held on my Ancestral Lands, on Yugambeh Country, which is now known as the Gold Coast. My only involvement was in protest of The Games, and I felt like I had a lot to protest about. My direct ancestral line on my Aboriginal side of the family, has had to deal with oppression for most levels of survival including the impact of massacres, the fear of child removal, living under The Act and the permit system, stolen wages, broken families and the culture war. Therefore, as an Indigenous person with old people who were grossly affected by colonial expansion, genocide and cultural assimilation, I view Indigenous Decolonisation as a process in understanding the history of our colonisation, rediscovering ancestral traditions and cultural values, while also Indigenizing spaces, and expressing my own contemporary world views creatively. It is in this way that we can heal and write ourselves into contemporary history making. However even in the mainstream arts the Gold Coast is well known as a Cultural Desert (Smith 2018), and Aboriginal people only make up less than two percent of the Gold Coast population (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2016). Interestingly, the Gold Coast is the focus for Foreign land buyers more than anywhere else in Queensland (Hele 2018)

Jenny Fraser with a photograph of her family matriarch, Granny Clark

My own commitment to responding to The Games became serious once I had noticed that a young Maori woman (from New Zealand) had been appointed to the first new Indigenous Art Coordinator position at the Gold Coast Arts Centre in the lead up to The Games. 'This strategic manoeuvre by White Gakekeepers was culturally and ethically wrong, to appoint a Maori to speak on behalf of Aboriginal people, and take an identified Aboriginal position, and the support that it entails (propped up by the gallery - while at the same time they block authentic Aboriginal artists and curators voices). It is also unnecessary because there are qualified, experienced and knowledgeable Aboriginal curators being blocked from this position.' (Fraser 2017) I contacted the associated politicians and gallery figureheads. The Gold Coast Mayor and the Queensland Premier did send an official letter in response, but could only manage to point to each other for responsibility. However there was no response at all from the Management and Board of the Arts Centre, including their one (non-Yugambeh) Aboriginal Board member. Yet plenty of every day Australians, and Maori had a lot to say online in responding to my objection, merely for the sake of opposing an Aboriginal viewpoint, not so much reflecting any interest in the Arts. Until The Games organising frenzy, there was never an Aboriginal Curator position there, or anywhere else at the Gold Coast, and now that its over there still aren't any.

a screen capture of the petition page on change.org : Aboriginal People managing Aboriginal Art

I had attended an initial planning camp for the Commonwealth Games protests held in November 2016, but it wasn't until I was monstered by Police a few months in the paramilitary lead up to The Games, when my commitment to protest was affirmed.

In September 2017. I was targeted by the Queensland Police on a train, and when I responded by writing down their ID numbers, I was arrested for Fare Evasion within minutes, handcuffed, manhandled, publicly accused of smoking and carrying drugs, escorted to a paddy wagon, patted down and driven to a car park, where I was let go. (Fraser 2017) I actually had a ticket, so the charge was quickly changed to Fail to Produce Ticket, and also Obstruct Police, and I was required to go to court. I made an official complaint to the Police Minister, which was reviewed by the Police "Ethical Command" Unit, who found the Police in question to have committed no breach of conduct... In order for me to get Legal Aid assistance, I was required to plead guilty in court, and because I had no prior record, the judge put me on a good behaviour bond for months, which happened to last until one week after The Games were over... This could have made protesting more of a risk for me, but it is a human right after all. I wasn't the only one harassed, as the preparatory Paramilitary exercises were being undertaken all around the region in South East Queensland and across the state border into Northern New South, other people were being monstered and also had batons, pepper spray and guns pulled on them which were recorded in places like Byron Bay (Graham 2018) (Ford 2018) and Nimbin (Hoeben 2018). However, it does not seem like it is over, as one week after The Games were finished, I also got a phone call from the Police on the 22^nd April, on a Sunday, informing me to expect a fine for a car accident that I had in 2017, which the Police had never even attended on the day in question... I elected to go to court, but the Police decided to drop the charge of 'Driving too close to another vehicle'.

My personal hopes for Camp Freedom was for it be a spiritual and cultural experience for locals and visitors alike, such as I had experienced in 2006 "During the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, it was at Camp Sovereignty where the spiritual healing developed. People felt peaceful and they felt safe, because the smoking ceremony at the sacred fire was healing. The introduction of our Aboriginal law, to the overall protest efforts, was the biggest contributor to the success of Camp Sovereignty." (Thorpe 2016) Some of the Indigenous Arts Community and others showed up to support Camp Freedom, performing and creating new work, which also helped to lift the vibration of the camp. We did this because real culture cannot be stopped, not because there was money in it for us, not because we were welcome at the Royals table, not because a government institution anointed us, and definitely not because we were part of a staged template, or a circus run by a circus, used by the Director of other Games formats already seen around the world. It was at Camp Freedom where our ongoing culture and consensus was consistently present throughout the two weeks, and as a parting gift, a Bora Ring was constructed with beach sand, in the shade of the space where yarning and decision making took place. Aside from the extreme Police response to the presence of Camp Freedom, I feel like our hopes were fulfilled and we did justice to our ancestors from all over the country. It must have been powerful, because the Bora Ring was immediately removed once Camp Freedom was vacated (Wharton 2018).

Camp Freedom Bora, Gold Coast 2018

by Jenny Fraser

* This is the unedited version of the essay that also appears in the Maroon Magazine marking the 10th annual Maroon Conference in Jamaica 2018
http://maroons-jamaica.com/modules/mod_flipbook_10/tmpl/mobile/index.html?fbclid=IwAR11LyDalD48pX1nrvEN3h_3E-wa2Xrqr0nf84LKfdBkNoBVxxzNuB4O9uo

References:

Australian Bureau of Statistics (2018) http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2016/quickstat/LGA33430

Armbruster, S. (2018) Security set for Commonwealth Games, SBS World News video, March 27, https://www.facebook.com/stefarmbruster/videos/433330197103448

Baker, A. (2014) G20 lockdown: the challenge of balancing freedom and security, The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/g20-lockdown-the-challenge-of-balancing-freedom-and-security-32698

Brahm, E. (2009) What is a Truth Commission and why does it matter? Peace and Conflict Review – Volume 3 Issue 2 (Spring 2009), 1-14 http://www.review.upeace.org/pdf.cfm?articulo=83&ejemplar=17

Drum Cussac (2018) Analysis: Security at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, Australia. May 14, https://www.drum-cussac.com/blog/commonwealth-games

(B.A.S.E) Brisbane Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy (2018) A proud message from WAR Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance. ,facebook page, April 14, https://www.facebook.com/brisbaneaboriginal.embassymedia/posts/1600044870045486

Courier Mail (2018), Gold Coast Commonwealth Games: Police to retain search powers, newspaper, http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/gold-coast-commonwealth-games-police-to-retain-search-powers/news-story/3b6e50ccd4496823fae6012ee8d656c4

Fraser, J. (2017) Aboriginal People managing Aboriginal Art, Petition https://www.change.org/p/the-arts-centre-gold-coast-aboriginal-people-managing-aboriginal-art

Fraser, J. (2017) Wrist Damage detail, photograph, September https://www.instagram.com/p/BZiZQlMDdM9/?taken-by=dot_ayu

Ford, M. (2018) Police officer who struck 16yo with baton 12 times outside Byron Bay hostel defends his actions, March 29, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-29/byron-bay-officer-who-struck-teenager-with-baton-defends-actions/9602296

Graham, B. (2018) Woman ‘knocked unconscious’ during Byron Bay arrest, February 13, https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/news/woman-knocked-unconscious-during-byron-bay-arrest/news-story/7472782dd11e4dccb73e28b4409508eb

Hartnett, A (2018) Camp Freedom Gold Coast Commonwealth Games 2018. April 20

https://www.facebook.com/albert.hartnett/posts/986664824823397

Hele, M. (2018) These are the suburbs where foreign buyers really want to own Queensland homes, https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/brisbane-qld/these-are-the-suburbs-where-foreign-buyers-really-want-to-own-queensland-homes/news-story/16214ff41b3843675f7140d6f1442934

Hoeben, S. (2018) facebook post, March 31 https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=if%20nimbin%20folks%20dont%20like%20this%20behaviour%20from%20the%20police%20

Legrand, T. & Bronitt, S. (2015) Policing the G20 protests: ‘Too much order with too little law’ revisited. Queensland Review, 22, pp 3-14 doi:10.1017/qre.2015.2

Madden, N. (2014) Brisbane G20: State-of-the-art Police Operations Centre to utilise hundreds of cameras, November 10, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-09/brisbane-g203a-state-of-the-art-police-comand-centre-revealed/5877744

Pierce, J. (2017) Queensland Police unveil top-secret security bunker to protect Gold Coast during Commonwealth Games, October 19, https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/qld/queensland-police-unveil-top-secret-security-bunker-to-protect-gold-coast-during-commonwealth-games-ng-9bd857e08ee96781c488e0b1ab41a7b4

Reagan, J. (2014) Brisbane G20: State-of-the-art Police Operations Centre to utilise hundreds of cameras, ABC News, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-09/brisbane-g203a-state-of-the-art-police-comand-centre-revealed/5877744

Reagan, J. (2018) Australian Police Down Rogue Drone at Gold Coast Games

https://dronelife.com/2018/03/27/australian-police-rogue-drone-gold-coast-games/

Roberts, G. (2018) Commonwealth Games facial recognition software to stay, but when will it be used? The Queensland Government won't say, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-19/qldrefuse-to-say-how-it-will-use-new-facial-recognition-software/9677156

Smith, A. (2018) How the Gold Coast games transformed a resort region into a city, April 13, https://theconversation.com/how-the-gold-coast-games-transformed-a-resort-region-into-a-city-94877

Thorpe, M. (2017) https://www.facebook.com/cyberTribegallery/photos/a.197301503673327/1259981534071980/?type=3&theater

Welcome To Country (2018) Media Blackout: the moment police were evicted by Aboriginal protesters, April 16, https://www.welcometocountry.org/police-evicted-by-aboriginal-protesters/

Wharton, R. (2018) Transcribed from Protesters Block Queen's Baton Relay by 7 News Brisbane, a video embedded in the online article titled 5 Reasons to join the Commonwealth Games Protests featured on the website Welcome To Country (2018) https://www.welcometocountry.org/5-reasons-to-join-the-2018-commonwealth-games-protests/

Wharton, R. (2018) May 20 Facebook Live video

https://www.facebook.com/ruby.wharton/videos/vb.100000364083234/1826451290710323/?type=3

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Cultural Apartheid : ISEA Sydney

Aboriginal New Media Artists have been focused on building a movement for over 15 years, but were brought to a stand still in Australia, having been excluded from ISEA Sydney 2013. ISEA, which is an acronym for International Symposium of Electronic Arts, has been running since 1988 in the Netherlands, and it tours to different host countries every year or so. The last time it was hosted in Australia was 1992, 21 years ago in Sydney. ISEA Sydney 2013 was organised by an Australian-based committee with very little Aboriginal New Media Arts input, despite a face-to-face meeting between Indigenous artists, (the non-Aboriginal) ISEA hierarchy and others. The meeting, which was held two years previous at the Australia Council for the Arts, finalising a two stage Indigenous Media and Hybrid Arts Roundtable, and was part of an Inter-Arts Fund strategy to develop support for Indigenous experimental media and hybrid arts practices, promised Indigenous involvement in ISEA Sydney as an outcome.

Instead, the Sydney ISEA Curatorium blocked Aboriginal New Media Arts interests such as the Blackout Collective from participating. The Blackout Collective is a group of Aboriginal creators from all over Australia who communicate fluidly and contribute towards screen-based culture in new ways. Even if we didn’t have a name, such as Blackout, we would still be a collective, because we work in a minority artform, in the minority Aboriginal art scene and we all struggle to represent as new media artists, with very little support or inclusion in Australia. Ironically, the official slogan for ISEA Sydney 2013 was 'Resistance is Futile', and Aboriginal New Media Artists are certainly familiar with the notion.

While the Blackout collective may be small in number, and spread across the country, many Aboriginal artists have represented at international electronic arts events such as ISEA, SIGGRAPH, X Media Lab, Ars Electronica in Austria and the InteractivA Biennale in Mexico. Over the years, this has included Aroha Groves (NSW) in ISEA Istanbul in 2011, r e a (NSW) in SIGGRAPH San Diego 2007, Genevieve Grieves (NSW) and myself (QLD) in ISEA/Zero1 San Jose 2006, and Jason Davidson (NT) in ISEA Helsinki in 2004.

While some Aboriginal artists were promised thousands of dollars to create and present new work, that was reneged upon, and instead, the money was used to open ISEA Sydney with an Aboriginal Welcome to Country and performances for International and interstate guests at Carriageworks in Redfern on Friday June 9, 2013. In the media response to the Blackout Collective, the Australian ISEA Director, Jonathon Parsons, perpetuated the idea that the welcome performance was the be-all and end-all of an Aboriginal presence at ISEA Sydney, but really a welcome and performance are just a normal part of Aboriginal culture, which should occur at every significant gathering in our country. Aside from that, there was a small exhibition of painters works that have garnered a new life with animation, but the question is, where were the Aboriginal New Media Artists for ISEA in Sydney? Would an International Dance showcase being hosted in Australia, get away with only including one Indigenous person representing that entire artform? Even with a few back up painters sponsored by the mining company thrown in for good measure? Surely there would be an uproar. However that is what happened, the Australia Council for the Arts employed one of their own (inexperienced) staff, Merindah Donnelly (from the Marketing Department) to act as an Indigenous New Media Art curator and spend our funds on a Welcome event for ISEA visitors: instead of what they were originally allocated for - experienced New Media artists genuine engagement in an international technology showcase on country. This is a huge conflict of interest.

Not only did the Australian ISEA organisers exclude Aboriginal new media artists from exhibiting at an international electronic arts event in our own country, but they failed to manage the situation professionally. In good faith, Indigenous artists jumped through their hoops and proposed new projects a year before, and had been on the short list since December 2012, with significant budgets being offered, and continually working on creating new work, only to find out final rejection notification one day before ISEA started in Sydney. It was a huge waste of money upfront and good energy in trying to meet the deadline with very little useful communication from the organisers, or so called Indigenous Creative Producer engaged at short notice for ISEA Sydney, Merindah Donnelly, who also happens to work for the Australia Council arts funding body....

However, the International guests were interested in Aboriginal New Media Arts and invited some of us for an opportunity to speak at the ISEA conference as part of the Latin American forum panel titled ‘Re:imag(in)ing Indigenous Media Art Histories’ alongside Columbian practitioners. The discussion was framed around a focus on the respective histories of Indigenous Australian artists working with new media, and in particular the inroads and dialogues established in international networks. More broadly the session addressed issues of identity, representation and visuality in the so-called ‘Global South’.

The panel was organised in a partnership between the Latin American Forum and an ARC Linkage project undertaken at the National Institute of Experimental Arts in Australia. Acknowledging that international publications and online archives dedicated to the study of Media Art are often dominated by white European and North American exemplars, and to further the discussion by drawing attention to the multiple trajectories that have sprouted from outside of the usual centres and dominant paradigms.

Press releases about the exclusion from exhibiting, were sent to the media and to the ISEA Sydney main funder, the Australia Council for the Arts. The story was really only picked up by one mainstream publication, Artshub (in the UK and Australia). Interestingly, the names of Aboriginal New Media Artists who had previously represented at ISEA overseas had been omitted, and instead were replaced by a list of the dancers involved in the Welcome to Country for ISEA Sydney, along with an incorrect list of artists, only one of which works in Aboriginal New Media, and was actually involved in ISEA (and not the Vivid, Festival, which was happening at the same time).

In the Arts Hub article, Parsons states that “ISEA2013 also provided a number of bursaries to encourage the participation of Indigenous artists in the conference.”, but actually, the bursaries were provided by Arts Victoria, and specifically only for Victorian Indigenous artists to travel to Sydney for the conference. Aboriginal faces at ISEA Sydney were certainly very few and far between. No official reply was received from ISEA Sydney (until the matter moved into social media, of course...), no official reply came from the International ISEA body and no official reply was received from the Australia Council for the Arts. ...Usually it is a conflict of interest for the funding body of an event to slide a (rare) paying curatorial role to one of its own staff (Merindah Donnelly from Marketing), so maybe that is why? * with the usual decades of artform specific experience suddenly not necessary...

The press release received interest internationally, and in the resulting conversations we learned that it wasn't the first time that ISEA had failed to deal with the “Indigenous Problem” adequately. Some Native American artists and journalists made contact to alert us to the fact that in the 2012 Albuquerque ISEA, exotically titled 'Machine Wilderness', they had also been excluded from participating in their own country. Ironically ISEA International promotes itself publicly on its website as 'an international non-profit organisation fostering interdisciplinary academic discourse and exchange among culturally diverse organisations and individuals'. However, American Indians also understand Cultural Apartheid and Culture Wars very well, and explained to me the notion of Co-option. Now I have a name for something that I have witnessed many times over the years, and which was particularly relevant in this instance as only one role had been created as the outcome of the advocacy of the Indigenous Roundtable, but that role had been filled to work against us, and spend Indigenous assigned funds without us New Media Artists and Curators.

Later in the year, the blackout collective presented a new online art project ‘Superhighway across the sky’ at the imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival in Toronto, Canada. The artists selected to make new experimental work were Christine Peacock, Jason Davidson and Michelle Blakeney, and we all travelled to Toronto to speak on a roundtable with other International guests at the annual festival, and later travelled on to London to present at the inaugural Indigeneity.net conference in the UK. The arts hub article about the ISEA exclusion, described this as an “ambitious presentation”, however, it is much easier and much more gratifying to organise engagement overseas, than it is in our homeland, especially given the greater divide between the film and new media arts here, and the lack of major Indigenous arts institutions, staff and interest. Highlighted again upon returning home to find that the short lived New Media category has been canned from of the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, without any prior warning to the field of artists, nor consultation.

The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival is an international festival in Toronto that celebrates the latest works by Indigenous peoples on the forefront of innovation in film, video, radio, and new media. Each year, the festival presents a selection of the most compelling and distinctive Indigenous works from around the globe. The festival's screenings, panel discussions, and cultural events attract and connect film makers, media artists, programmers, buyers, and industry professionals. The works accepted reflect the diversity of the world's Indigenous nations and illustrate the vitality and excellence of our art and culture in contemporary media.

‘Superhighway across the sky' will be launched in 2014 and featured with cyberTribe, an online gallery focused on nurturing digital art. cyberTribe has been at the forefront of exhibiting cutting edge and politically important artworks from Indigenous Artists internationally, both in its online gallery and other gallery spaces across the world. cyberTribe celebrates 15 years in 2014, and over the years, has brought together Indigenous artists from places across Australia, the Pacific, the Americas and elsewhere to participate in exhibitions of international standing. All without any annual funding, ever.

An important milestone for cyberTribe over the years includes winning the ABC Radio National Indigenous Cultural Centre/Keeping Place Award in 2009, for creating a unique place for Indigenous artists to create and exhibit new media work as well as more traditional forms. Museums Australia Director, Bernice Murphy, commented in the ABC RN announcement: “The award to cyberTribe reminds us all that Indigenous creativity needs to be supported in the most up-to-date forms – even in ‘regional cyberspace’ – as well as out back where communities are keeping fires of tradition and continuity burning strong.”

...So what's next? Now we wait 20 years or so, for the next ISEA to come to Australia and see what happens then? Meanwhile we observe a charmed circle of the mainstream Australian Art scene do what they do best – promote their own interests, and sickeningly get all self-congratulatory about it. Even though Parsons had started the ISEA Sydney role very late, and it was only for a few months anyway, it is interesting to note that he has already been appointed to a major New Media Arts role in one of the very few New Media specialised organisations – Experimenta. This is usually unheard of - for an inexperienced outsider of the medium to be anointed with free passage through the gate ...but not entirely surprising. Although the hypocrisy is astounding, its the Australian way.

Jenny Fraser

http://cybertribe.culture2.org/jennyfraser

an edited version of this article has been featured in Artlink Magazine under the title