A long silence

I have been silent for a while. Doing a lot of thinking.
I have also been writing a paper for the ACRAWSA conference in Brisbane later this week.
That is the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association. I imagine I will have lots more to contribute after that conference. I have been in the studio a lot but doing quite labor intensive work. I have had two very sore thumbs from pushing 3000 drawing pins into a portrait of my face.
I love this image as it looks like a beautiful dot painting on top of my image but it is actually 3000 drawing pins. It seems to me to be an inverted dot painting. Not really sure what that means but I make the work and the meaning will follow.

I have also been embroidering the Victorian chair, covering the stains with red satin embroidery thread and red beads. Last week I was privileged to be able to attend a workshop on Gunditjamarra language led by an old friend of my husband. It was so moving to hear a lengthy welcome to country spoken in language that would have been his. He died before this reconstruction work could be done. He would have been so proud to hear the words of his ancestors spoken so well.

Self Healing

Its so strange how she seems to be looking up at the camera. Its as though I am really putting the pins in my face.

UNsettling

I have been reading a very interesting article called Unsettling settler colonialism: The discourse and politics of settlers, and solidarity with Indigenous nations. 
It is written by three academics from Canada - Corey Snelgrove, Rita Kaur Dhamoon and Jeff Corntassel. While I am still digesting the full article I have been struck by Corey Snelgrove's section of the piece. At the beginning they all self locate where they sit in relation to colonisation. Jeff Corntassel is a Tsalagi (Cherokee) man and Rita Kaur Dhamoon ancestry is from India and brings her experience of British colonial rule, now transported as a second stage coloniser but Corey is predominantly English, Scottish and German ancestry. He writes about how as a white, class privileged, heterosexual the social world is crafted in his image but this 'worldly reflection' is not the world he wants to live in. He relates feelings of 'shame, frustration, alienation and anger towards myself, other settlers, as well as the structures of settler colonialism'.
It was amazing to me to find these words written on a page as it absolutely describes my experience.

I am currently working with sore fingers to embroider the stains on a beautiful little bedroom chair.
See work in progress -

Stained - work in progress

Night watch

Nest Chairs

The Colonial Post

This work has come from the photo shoot I did a few weeks ago and is evolving.
I am interested in the idea of the Colonial Post to which we are still tied. Does the blank space in these images provide room for the viewer to insert themselves in the scene and look around. I noticed when I was working on these pictures that every time I covered up the key part of the image the effect improved. I heard Richard Flanagan interviewed at the Ubud Writers Festival (congratulations to him for winning the Man Booker) and he spoke of his belief that as soon as a work tells the audience what to think it is ruined. I liked what he said and have to work to keep my arrogance in check in order to follow his lead.

The RUIN of the coloniser

Another shoot in this place that seems to speak to me of so many things. I somehow feel at home amidst all the wombat and swallow shit, rats nests and rotting detritus. Cant explain why but I love the remains of lives that have ben left to decay rather than sentimentally retrieved and sold expensively in Fitzroy antique shops.

I placed selected pieces of my colonial collection amongst the chaos, a tea pot owned by my great grandmother and a ship made in 1864, and when we were taking them out my colleagues said it was hard to tell what was mine and what belonged to the space.

I participated in an amazing masterclass conducted by Patrice Naimbana last week. I was able to place in context some aspects of my relationship with Les that I have never been able to talk about. The Gospel of Othello was the name of the masterclass and with the powerful but gentle encouragement of Patrice we all explored the complexities of race and colonisation in the Shakespeare play. I found resonances I didn't expect. Next post I will explore this. Have to go to work!