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
