National Reconciliation Week - Indigenous Video Art Screening

Image for National Reconciliation Week - Indigenous Video Art Screening

Ross McKay Courtyard (formerly Tsubu outdoor garden) at rear of 1888 Building, University of Melbourne, Parkville Campus

Map

Image: Hannah Bronte, Umma's toungue - molten at 6000°, image still, 2017

As part of the New Student Precinct Project and Next Wave Partnership, Next Wave will present a screening of Indigenous films over three evenings sourced from the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) digitised collection, as well as several other independent Indigenous film makers and collectives. To open the series, a presentation of Indigenous video art will be presented in the outdoor setting of the Ross McKay Courtyard. The series hopes to pay our respects to elder’s past, present and future whilst showcasing the rich cultural background of Indigenous Australians and artistic interpretations of Aboriginality in Australia today.

The event will be opened with a didgeridoo performance from musician Kiernan Ironfield.

This series has been programmed by Next Wave, with curatorial assistants Edwina Green and Moorina Bonini, as part of Next Wave’s Mentorship Program produced in partnership with the University of Melbourne’s New Student Precinct Project.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised that these works may contain images and voices of people who have died.

Light refreshments will be provided at the event.

Screening 1 Program

sometimes I want bell hooks but what I really need is better Te Reo (a body of work at the end of the earth) by Amrita Hepi, 2017, 2:31 mins. 

Informed and nourished by the intersectional theory of African American feminist theorist bell hooks, Hepi’s work explores evolving ideas of blackness and the sisterhood. Recently, Hepi locates intersections specific to the proximity of her experience in the Australasian/ Pacific context through physical conversations, dance, yarning and korero. This argonautic physical dialogue is an excerpt from an ongoing conversation of this nature - influenced by cultural memory, remembering moana's influence, resilience, and a renegotiation of tradition that informs innovation. Performed by Amrita Hepi and Jahra Rager with sound by Lavurn Lee.

Blek Bala MJ by Timothy Hillier and Danzel Baker, 2017, 6 mins

Blek Bala MJ is a collaboration between Yolngu dancer Danzel Baker (aka Baker Boy) and filmmaker Timothy Hillier. For the Yolngu, dancing is a way of telling stories and passing down knowledge. The Yolngu have been influenced by Michael Jackson’s dancing for more than 30 years, combining it with traditional bungal, the Yolngu word for dancing. This video follows in the tradition of Jean Rouch and captures Baker slipping between his Yolngu culture and Jackson’s dancing, both of which his father had taught him from a young age.

Umma’s tongue – molten at 6000° by Hannah Bronte, 4 mins

Her core is molten at 6000 degrees, the same temperature as walking on the sun. She has been dormant for thousands of years but now wakes to her womb being fracked, poisoned, and mined. Her broad frame unfurls from the earth, the future ancient is awake. Umma’s tongue is sharp as she slices through the polluted air, rapping 200,000 years of human debris

Visit the National Reconciliation Week 2018 website or a full program of National Reconciliation Week Events at the University of Melbourne.