Ground on Ground: negotiating
instability
In Kununurra I find myself on the edge
of other cultures. The land I stand on
is sung and painted by its traditional owners and the massive push of
colonisation is continuing its insidious path. The environment is harsh and
unforgiving and yet is painted in the famous Kimberley tradition with great
love and respect. My current project is
to negotiate my way on this precipice; to find a way to share the land whilst
acknowledging precedence of the traditional owners. The sandstone rocks continuously shift and
move and hold stories of great heartbreak that are better told by witnesses and
descendants. Scratch the surface and you
touch ‘country’, a term that carries the weight of Indigenous culture with
it. This project will record my careful
tread to find a space for communication across cultures whilst respecting
‘country’.
The project will be through the process
of drawing, which I will use to find a common ground for negotiation across
cultures. Ground is a commonality that
brings us together and is also what is most contested and continues to cause
destruction and heartbreak.
Paper is traditionally considered the
ground of drawing, the neutral receptor for an artist’s marks, which brings
meaning into the work. I consider paper
in the same way the philosopher Deleuze discusses memory; as ‘a membrane that
puts an outside and an inside into contact, makes them present to each other,
confronts them or makes them clash.’ Paper
itself has a memory from its manufacturing process to the art historical
tradition that it carries. My job is to
continue to challenge and extend that tradition.
Kununurra Kuts, digital photograph, Kelly's Knob, Kununurra, WA
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