Journal
Articles
Beating the bounds
‘LIKE THE BROLGA Dancers at the Mullet Run,’ Murree grinned, squatting easily against the base of a gum tree...
Supercut
Questioning the past is a vital part of my role as an artist. Art has the influence to shape the way we think and perceive the world, as it has throughout history. I’m motivated by the desire to improve and do better, and the same goes for how I want my art career to proceed. The need to do better in the future is predicated on the fact that to do so, we need to revisit and interrogate the past. This is especially important in a country such as Australia, founded on colonial violence and with a legacy of racism that persists today.
Radical hope in the face of dehumanisation
Our Elders are the epitome of these thousands of generations of existence and survival in this place, and if we’re thinking about the future of the world and our survival, we need to be learning from these people. They hold the most knowledge, the most intimate knowledge of not just surviving but of thriving and maintaining generosity in the face of all the challenges.
Living cultures under the acts
These stories go something like this: pioneering spirit and entrepreneurialism have built success for the whites who have flourished, while congenital bad character leads our peoples to our inevitable conclusions. Pioneering spirit is celebrated across the landscape: Pioneer Park. Pioneer’s Sculpture. Bicentennial Park.
Last rites
I COLLECT MY father on a hot Friday morning from a funeral home in Preston. He’s waiting for me...
Being here
BACK IN 2015, when we were getting the local language work going here at the Aireys Inlet Primary School...
My mother’s silence, my nation’s shame
ON 4 FEBRUARY 1942, stripped of all identification, hands wired behind his back, my grandfather and some 160 other...
Writing back
SIR SAMUEL GRIFFITH was my great-great grandfather. He was one of the ‘founding fathers’ of Australian Federation, a premier...
Dune coons and crescent moons
FIRST WORDS Kes emak. Your mum’s cunt. Don’t judge. I learn them from my mother. She is at Coles in Redfern,...
Old gods
Our old gods they are called false they are cut from the land like a mountain nothing holds firm the...
They cannot say their thoughts
(or, If Cohen sang Oodgeroo)
Dance me to the rhythm of a language (I don’t speak) ’Neath sapphire-misted mountains they might kill (ya) Breathe out brokin...
the sweet lie
my ancestors peer towards dry land from the deck of a ship; or are they like swine, packed into the...
