showing Aboriginal resilience in Japan

This year I curated the Aboriginal inclusion for an exhibition in Japan.

Boomalli Cooperative members were invited to exhibit in the 18th JAALA International Art Exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Japan, August 2012. A partnership between JAALA, cyberTribe and Boomalli realised the inclusion of Aboriginal artworks, for the first time in the history of the long-running JAALA Biennale.

The acronym JAALA stands for Japan, Asian, African and Latin American Artists Association. Founded in 1978, with the inaugural exhibition titled "reinstatement of man and nature" at the Metropolitan Art Museum, JAALA included countries such as Palestine, China, Korea, Philippines, Thailand, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Kurdistan, Pakistan, Kenya and others.  The 2012 JAALA Biennial included a new focus on other countries: South Korea, China, Kurdistan, Taiwan and Aboriginal Australia.

Heres what I wrote in August for our inclusion in the upcoming catalogue for JAALA 2012:

It is an honour and privilege for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists to be invited to exhibit in Japan for the first time in the history of the JAALA International Art Exhibition.   The partnership between JAALA, Boomalli and cyberTribe has realised the exchange of goodwill and awareness-raising for all of our cultures.

There are many entry points for engagement with the JAALA curatorial themes. The major issues that the Indigenous artists have focused on are the oppression of our people, and also questioning the governments use of art as propaganda. It is interesting that the all of the artists have chosen to maintain a positive stance, responding with artworks about healing and cultural adaptation, which is a strong testimony to Aboriginal resilience.

Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative is one of Australia's longest running Aboriginal owned and operated art galleries. Established in Sydney in 1987, Boomalli, a word derived from three different Aboriginal language groups, means: “To strike; to make a mark”. Boomalli has seen hard times in recent years, but will make a mark for its 25th anniversary in many ways in 2012 and exhibiting in Japan is a really important extension of the community program.

cyberTribe is an unfunded artist-run initiative with a focus as an online gallery but makes use of opportunities in other gallery spaces and places for Indigenous Artists locally and Internationally. The online gallery space is part archive, part gallery, part museum and part publisher, founded over a decade ago.

The artists exhibiting in the 2012 JAALA International Art Exhibition are Bronwyn Bancroft, Michelle Blakeney, Nicole Boeree, Jason Davidson, Charmaine Davis, Jenny Fraser, Danielle Gorogo, Kim Healey, Wayne Quilliam and Graham Toomey. 

The strength of the JAALA International Art Exhibition is in acknowledging the power of creativity and investing energy to spread the network and communicate across borders. Hopefully JAALA will continue with the inclusive dialogue to foster artistic responses from artists representing Indigenous cultures and other groups, locally and around the world.

Jenny Fraser 

dates and links: 'International Exhibition JAALA' at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Japan ::: August 12 – 19, 2012 http://www.boomalli.com.au/international.html

JAALA http://www.jaala.jp

cyberTribe http://cybertribe.culture2.org

Boomalli http://www.boomalli.com.au

JAALA Curator Saburo Inagaki, Kurd Artist Karwan Omar and Jenny Fraser.

Koori Mail article, from August 8, 2012

at one of the JAALA artists roundtable discussions, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum

at the JAALA Opening Ceremony party.

a view of the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum courtyard.

my ow artwork in the JAALA exhibition 'Abonormal Cells':

Abnormal Cells features Eukarote Cells which are common in all living creatures: plants, animals and humans, and are therefore known as the building blocks of life. Once damaged by the likes of Yellow Cake Uranium, cells are mutated, never to be the same. This idea is explored through an attempt at painting notions of toxicity. The Series was produced for the exhibition 'The Creative Cell of Life' which was an Art/Science response to the following quote: “She gave birth unto the first female of life of flash and blood, the mould and pattern for all the mothers of the Earth. She endowed her Infant Female Child with faculties and powers to conceive just what the human race is today.” 

~ David Unaipon Native Legends

a conversation about big eye aboriginal animations exhibition

A  conversation between Jenny Fraser and Rennae Hopkins

for the Big Eye: Aboriginal Animations exhibition

Rennae:

Animation has the capacity to move across the boundaries of imagination representing a visual connection to the traditional Aboriginal kinship structures of both moiety and totemism … a visual experience that identifies the non-Indigenous audience with both the mystical and the unknown.

Jenny:

The ancient design styles from both countries lend themselves to the animation artform. When we really look at customary material culture we can almost see objects like bark paintings or totem poles come alive in our minds eye, even without an understanding of their stories. They have such a strong visual literacy all of their own.

Rennae:

Exactly, it’s so important that we retain intellectually, more than just a collection of short animations … this exhibition is vital as a contemporary sharing of indigenous cultural heritage and ongoing cultural maintenance.

Jenny:

True. in the mainstream Australian Arts industries, there is a very big divide between film-making and media arts arenas. Apparently the two entities shall never meet, and sadly the Aboriginal sub-sections of those industries have followed suit. However, in other countries, like Canada, the artsworld is bighearted enough to embrace and support both, simultaneously. on a curatorial level, animation was chosen as a screen-based genre that crosses that divide with ease, along with the other divides, like age, education and socio-economic status.

Rennae:

it’s typical and unfortunate that Blackfellas in a position of education and access continually conform to mainstream conservatism and boundary construction. Instead we need to draw on our similarities as Aboriginal peoples, not just as Blackfellas but worldwide and globally … i do know that the mythology of First nation Peoples of both Canada and Australia are very similar … both hold a common belief that human consciousness developed from a form of totemic connection. It is this mutual understanding of a collective consciousness between both parties that we see evidenced within the animations … ideas of belonging – nature – and creation.

Jenny:

The Dreaming Stories by Aboriginal nations in Australia and Raven Tales from Canada are great examples of Creation stories from an animist perspective in action. Generally animals are a great mirror for our own behaviours. This is in reflection of the true essence of our identity. Everything else comes after the beginning…

Rennae:

Ahh Deadly sista… in Big Eye, the Canadian and Australian Aboriginal artists expression is centred on a fusion between traditional and urban – contemporary and ancient. This is where we now find ourselves as indigenous peoples globally. Each generates an almost visual poetry as a narrative connected to the subconscious and the unknown. Two words - ‘you’ and ‘us’ – register a relationship between atmosphere and earth. This is understood as a time continuum between the past, present and future which then returns us back to the start, never-ending. This is what has always made our world view separate and unique to the West which sees the world as linear – a series of events.

Jenny:

Yes, we can only strive to honour the past as our teacher, honour the present as our creation, and honour the future as our inspiration, this is ‘Dreaming’ in action :) The work Boy and Moth is particulaly interesting in this regard as it is a contemporary myth, or re-Dreaming from the mind of Writer and Kombumerri Traditional owner John Graham, simultaneously referencing all realms. similarly in Darkness Calls, the comic book drawn by steven Keewatin sanderson, we can see how all is inter-related through the life of Kyle, the main character, his friends, family and ancestors alike.

Rennae:

It is no coincidence that we discover such similarity … it is a living demonstration given the shared colonisation processes of both countries, which were designed to systematically destroy native languages and cultures and assimilate First nation Peoples into white society … these animations serve as a product of healing and adjustment to the reinvention of Aboriginal identity for a new age.

Jenny:

Trans-Generational Trauma has manifested in many ways, in most Aboriginal families. Again the reason why so many of our people conform as a sign of success … it is important to note that before the official Apology by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Canadian Government had handed over $350 million compensation to Residential school Abuse sufferers and this was invested into culturally significant intitiatives; such as talking circles, language revitalisation and digital storytelling projects. This is a good model for Australia to follow; in proactively addressing the impact of the wrongs of the past on an individual and collective level and move forward with a healthier mindset.

Rennae:

About time and long overdue … any strategy that encourages the nurturing of Indigenous First nation Peoples own separate and viable intellectual property outside of the relationship of an ongoing oppression through colonisation is vital.

Jenny:

There are currently very few avenues for Aboriginal voices to be heard. Animation is one of the artforms acceptable to mainstream non-indigneous audiences.  Unlike other Aboriginal content, they’re even screened on main-stream prime time TV!

Rennae:

Unfortunately this becomes our two edged sword … in fitting in within avenues of mainstream audience the true authenticity of ceremony and practice within our own inherent system of storytelling has become lost. For instance the idea that through parable, the development of human consciousness and mythology is established as a direct link to a faith in God (Biami) or a higher being as a final stage of human evolution … is not really considered beyond the aesthetic forms of the animation.

Jenny:

Agreed… but if we keep involved in creative acts, we maintain connection to the essence of our ancestral roots and become at one with Biami, or Jabreen in that very moment. As Luis Riel, an important Metis Leader prophesised in 1885: “My people will sleep for one hundred years, when they awake it will be the artists who give them their spirit back”.  

Biographies:

Rennae Hopkins is a Maiawali Karuwali and Pitta Pitta Aboriginal woman from Boulia, North West Queensland. Rennae completed her degree at the Queensland University of Technology studying in Communication Design. ‘I am excited at the endless possibilities made available in regards to cutting edge technology and animation … what is most exciting is how these new mediums can reflect a very sophisticated contemporary understanding of our own personal experience as Indigenous peoples in ways that previously were only visions of fantasy and romantic mystery.’

Jenny Fraser is a ‘digital native’ working within a fluid screen-based practice, also partly defined through a strong commitment to Artist / Curating as an act of sovereignty and emancipation, founding cyberTribe online gallery in 1999. A Murri, she was born in Mareeba, Far North Queensland and her old people originally hailed from Yugambeh Country in the Gold Coast Hinterland on the South East Queensland / Northern New South Wales border.

Big Eye was finally shown in Canada!  - at vtape in Toronto, October 2011. Part of the Aboriginal Curatorial Collectives Colloquium exhibition program, collectively named Mzinkojige Waabang (He/She is Carving Tomorrow) produced by Wanda Nanibush.
http://fusemagazine.org/2012/03/35-2_turions

and the Big Eye exhibition will finish up the tour where it began - in Darwin 2012