Healing Our Spirit Worldwide - Hawaii 2010

Who?

Originally initiated by health-workers, and now to include presentations and participation from people with a range of different cultural, spiritual and professional backgrounds, including Indigenous elders, cultural workers, community organizers, educators, students, activists, artists, researchers and healers.

What?

A truly awesome and inspiring gathering including official welcomes, Pow Wows, feasts, workshops, exhibitions, a film festival, poster presentations, tours, youth program and general talk-fest.

When?

The conference happens every four years or so.

Hawaii represented well in 2010.

Seen here discussing the proposal in Hawaii, Australia won the bid for the next one - which will be held in Alice Springs 3 or 4 years time from now - keep an eye out for info regarding the gathering there in 2013.

Australia has held one before - in Sydney, 1994, 2 years after it was initiated in Edmonton, Canada.

Where?

Over 2000 delegates attended the 6th HOSW conference that was held at the Hawaii Convention Centre in Honolulu, and surrounding venues on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.

Apparently previous conferences hosted up to 3500 delegates in Edmonton, Canada.

How?

The conference is the result of a huge amount of planning and preparation on behalf of a number of committees and working groups such as the International Indigenous Council.

The calls for abstracts of proposed presentations closed earlier this year, a few months before the actual conference.

Why?

The overall theme of the HOSW conference this year was love - all-encompassing yes, but this is the basis of Hawaiian culture: their greeting, Aloha, literally means love, and what a great movement of healing to bring to the Hawaiian Islands and beyond.

The conference was originally initiated around the themes of addictions but now it encompasses so much more:
Governance & Self-Determination Issues & Challenges in Health & Healing, Moving Beyond the Impacts of Historical Trauma, Cultural Oppression & Colonialism, Community Prevention of Diseases & Public Health, Best Practices in Community & School Based Health Promotion & Prevention Strategies, Residential Schools & Intergenerational Impacts & Institutional Abuse, Treatment & Aftercare – Addictions,Tobacco, gambling, etc., Indigenous Culture, Language,Arts & Medicines, Proactive Intervention & Prevention Strategies for Suicide, Restoring Balance from Trauma & Violence, Research & Evaluation, Training & Education, Impacts of Drug Wars\Impact of Wars on Indigenous Populations, Prenatal & Early Childhood Wellness, Mental Health & Addictions, Healing Programs for Offenders & Victims, Nutrition, Physical Wellness & Injury Prevention, Gender Issues, Best Practices in Reconciliation, Health, Homelessness and Poverty, Best Practices in Urban Health and Healing

Videos:

Before arriving http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Crd24DDcBlc

Opening Ceremony on the water http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N181lavNG3I

Links:

The website: http://www.hosw.com/

http://www.healingourspirit.net/

Reports about the Hawaii HOSW, 2010 gathering:

http://alpenglolocal.blogspot.com/2010/09/healing-our-spirit-worldwide-north.html

http://hawaiihealthguide.com/healthtalk/display.htm?id=878&hhsid=883ea43ea5ff12dac53a7b30a60c94e9

The fifth gathering, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, 2006:

http://www.pimatisiwin.com/uploads/815066568.pdf

A report about the Albuquerque HOSW, 2002 gathering:

http://www.cathcomm.org/aboriginalcm/hhouse/WorldHealingConf.htm

Manifesto

The alterNATIVE (Curators) Manifesto

(or how to manifest an alternative/fringe exhibition to the blockbuster show)

1. Get creative.
...in an activist kind of way - See problems as an opportunity for progress.

2. Name the enemy.
... be direct, unapologetic and precise.

3. Invite the people you would like to work with.

... Use all personal contacts you've ever had.

4. Trust the artists and let them do things they’re planning to do and they’ll do their best.

... Never point to the work, but discuss the strategy.

5. Focus on the centre.

.... Usually that is the place where you are situated and then radiates out from there.

6. Poach performers from the blockbuster exhibition.

... Some are bound to be related to the artists in your show.

7. Create a corroboree / ceremony for the now.
... “As we grow older, we ourselves become the storytellers...
In the ceremonies we celebrate the awareness of our lives as sacred.”


Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr
Dadirri – Listening to one another


8. Invest great energy into the catalogue / website...
People mostly remember the opening parties and catalogues.

9. Make the most of social networking – online and face-to-face.

... And document everything. Its your ticket to the next one.

10. Make sure there is a next one.


A draft of this Manifesto was first presented at the Pacific Arts Associations 10th International Symposium, Rarotonga, August, 2010 http://www.pacificarts.org/symposia

Pacific Arts Association Symposium, Rarotonga Cook Islands, August 2010

The Pacific Arts Association 10th International Symposium is on in Rarotonga, Cook Islands in August, where I am honoured to be able to present a paper about 'the other APT'.

Until I add more info here later, please find more info at these links:

blog: http://cook2010.blogspot.com

program: http://pacificarts.org/node/329

detailed schedule: http://pacificarts.org/node/420

http://www.pacificarts.org/node/83

I have previously attended a PAAE (Pacific Art Association Europe) conference at Cambridge University, Museum of Archaelogy and Anthropology, UK, in 2006, where I presented a paper on Aboriginal New Media Arts in 2006

http://www.pacificarts.org/pacificarts.org/europe06

Road Trip

A short Film

One Liner:
A young girls memory of a road trip with her dad which sparked a nation wide search.

Synopsis:
This is a personal story of an extended camping trip that explores ideas of movement, family, place and the mindset of the 70's.

A 4 year old is on a long journey with her father. She spends time with his side of the family enjoying new experiences.

Then the Police take her away and she leaves them behind.

Story Outline:
A father and mother agree that he can take his daughter south to a beach side camp for a long weekend. They end up on a road trip, a very long drive, around 3000km further north. Her dad buys her a bag of mixed lollies and a new denim outfit. Her Grandma is there as well, with whom she spends some nurturing time and a new coastal landscape. Her father works.

Meanwhile, her mother is distraught and seeks custody and police support. A nation wide search ends months later.

This is a story of “kidnap”.

Background:
The primary purpose of this as a short drama is to impart the story. While this is an obvious statement, it is however necessary to ascertain that it is not an intention to flesh out “issues” or spoon feed the audience. Rather, provide a personal account of a story that has had an impact on peoples lives and the audience will be left to make up their own minds.

This work investigates important elements of my family history and involves research with family members and possibly more formal culture brokers also.

The story generally looks at kidnap by family members, important oral history along with an environmental snapshot of the day (1970s). The outcome could also possible take the form of a docudrama.

This project follows on generations later, from where preceding projects ‘other[wize]’ and ‘unsettled’ left off. See: www.cybertribe.culture2.org/unsettled

There is a script for a 10minute film... however I plan to further research and develop ideas in order to further develop for a trailer.

When finalised it could possibly be suitable for multiple screening contexts, including the site-specific.

Approach / Style:
This story will be told through utilising a range of dramatisation techniques.

An “unearthing” or collective remembering and family photographs could be used to compliment some scenes.

· This can be filmed in 3 parts, or locations: the road trip with father and daughter, mother and baby at home and also father, daughter and grandma at the Darwin destination. Along with 1970s style costuming and props, Super 8 footage is suggested here, for a more grainy “old” feel and an orange tinge similar to the photography from that era.

· Re-enactment of Television / Radio News 1976, Newspapers, Radio. The re-enactment, or re-creation will add a different dimension to the mere retelling of the story.

· Narration could also be added.

Indian Cowboys / Cowboy Indians

Video Installation
Dimensions Variable




“Whoever the last true cowboy in America turns out to be,
he’s likely to be an Indian.”

A quote by William Least Heat-Moon (originally William Trogdon),
from Blue Highways: A Journey into America



Statement about the work by Jenny Fraser:


This work is a communication to my old people.

When pondering their image, I noticed that the photographs had been doctored to lighten skin.

This pains me.

It seems that they were too black.

They worked on cattle properties, far away from their homelands.

I wish to try to let them know what their old stomping ground is like now…

dressing-up in the photo booth is something that people do for fun.

It’s not real, but it is the photography of the day in a theme park inspired playground.

Pictured here is my art family, lenticular-style, a movement, a resistance…

I am left to wonder how real the portrait sittings were for my old people?

Did they find it fun?

What would they dress as now? The Indian or the Cowboy or the Cowboy Indian?



Detail view (family photographs)
Detail view; Video Installation at ICAN (Indonesia Contemporary Artists Network), Jogjakarta

the Journey of Healing

The Journey of Healing is the name of an event held each year at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. It is a feel-good community gathering that is hosted by the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit in collaboration with Goorie Berrimpa Student Association and UQ Union whos students and staff commit good energy towards hospitality.

I was fortunate to be able to attend last year when the theme was 'More than a word' - great food, great company and great nourishment for the spirit. We heard personal stories from some of the Stolen Generation, Songs and Speeches about the progress after the official Apology.

There is more info and images from that night here: http://atsis.uq.edu.au/index.html?page=108005&pid=41919

The Journey of Healing is coming up again on Friday the 28th May, 2010, under the theme of 'Closing the Gap on Reconciliation'

Heres the invitation: http://www.uq.edu.au/atsis/docs/2010_Invitation.pdf

Wear shades of Purple, Black and White : )

Road Kill

These works are part of a wider series titled 'hit the road' which are all based on roadkill of native animals on lands in the Bundjalung Nation that encompass a diversity of terrain to include rainforest and coast. The photographs highlight the distinct beauty of our animals, even in their death, and are also symbolic of how native people are treated by wider society in Australia - widely ignored and denied after impact, just like road kill.

With regard to the power of communication between people, the Super Highways and other road networks of Australia now could be likened to the ancient songlines of old, but with such devastion caused by our thoroughfare, what song are we offering to the victims? A death march? Clearly the minds of progress do not have much consideration for the movements and habits of our animals.

see the previous works : 'Hit the Road' 2005

http://www.cybertribe.culture2.org/oldschool/feathers/index.htm

and the essay:

http://www.conundrumonline.org/Issue_3/Feathers_Float.htm