Black on White

Artwork by Dianne Jones

Black on White was an exhibition of artwork by Aboriginal artists representing non-Aboriginality, held at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Fitzroy.

The following artists were commissioned to produce work for the exhibition, Gayle Maddigan, Christian Thompson, Lisa Bellear and Dianne Jones. Brook Andrew exhibited work that was produced previously that fitted the theme of the show and Mervyn Bishop's iconic photographs of Gough Whitlam and Vincent Lingari, were also exhibited along with the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald showing his famous photograph 'Life and Death Dash'.

The artists were asked to contemplate the following text:

There is a long and fraught tradition of depictions of Aboriginal people by non- Aboriginal people. Indigenous people have been drawn, photographed and filmed continuously since first contact, represented through the eyes of the invading forces. The stereotypes of Aboriginal people that exist in the non-Aboriginal community are largely formed by representations that were created by a culture that had no understanding of their fellow humans and saw them as the disconnected other. In many ways this has not changed. The media continues to frame 'Aboriginal stories' in a certain way that feeds into the perceptions of the status quo. There still exists in the broader community the idea that Aboriginal people look and act a certain way. Aboriginal artists have made inroads to this area by representing themselves, however, how do they see the people and culture that surrounds them. How does the act of representation, shape the way those who are represented, see those who represent them. Put simply, does the stereotype held by mainstream Australia, affect the perspective that Indigenous Australians have of the broader community?

Their work was developed with this in mind and the resulting exhibition was an innovative look at race relations at this point in Australian history. Each artist wrote an artists statement outlining their response to the project. On the whole their examination of the issues led them to conclude that the division between Black and White encapsulated in the name of the exhibition was an artificial division. Several of the artists felt that they were not so easily divided and excluded from, in many cases, their white relatives. The critique of whiteness was complex and sophisticated and represents the opening up of a new dialogue in the arts.

The exhibition opened on Thursday the 9th of June to a large crowd of approximately 200 people. Caroline Briggs did the 'welcome to country' speech and then Councillor Judy Morton spoke on behalf of the City of Yarra. Jason Eades, CEO of the Koorie Heritage Trust, then spoke about the exhibition and the history of representation of Aboriginal people by non-Aboriginal people. He officially opened the exhibition.

A broad range of people attended the exhibition on the opening night, particularly Aboriginal people who would not normally go to the CCP. There was generally very positive feedback about the work.

The exhibition was curated by Megan Evans from ANTaR Victoria and Maree Clarke of the Koorie Heritage Trust. We worked together to identify the selected artists and then I followed up and invited them to participate in the show. The role of supporting the artists in the creation of the work and the development of the ideas was done by inviting them to meetings at the gallery and after for a social gathering to get to know one another and to discuss the theme.

Maree and Megan also supported Lisa Bellear in the selection of photographs to be used in the exhibition and in the method and design for hanging them.

Dr. Tony Birch was commissioned to write the catalogue essay and the catalogue was designed in house at the CCP. Tony spoke to Megan and some of the artists about the exhibition to inform his writing.

The exhibition ran from June 9th until July 17th, Wednesday to Saturday 2005. On Saturday the 11th of June artist talks were held at the gallery. I spoke as the curator and Gayle Maddigan and Christian Thompson spoke about their work as artists. During the exhibition a workshop was run by the Davina Woods, the education officer at the Koorie Heritage Trust and Lisa Bellear one of the artists. Twelve young people attended the workshop, six young Aboriginal people and six students from Princess Hills Secondary College. They participated in a process based workshop looking at colour and representation, and then worked with Lisa, looking at the nature of photography and representing Aboriginal people. They were each given a digital camera to use and a brief lesson on how to use it by a CCP volunteer. They looked at the exhibition and then using props bought from the Koorie heritage Trust, they were invited to take photographs of one another in the exhibition space as well as in the CCP's education space. The resulting photographs were complied in a power point presentation and projected back to the students for them to see how they represented one another.

The best of these photographs are being placed on a web page on the CCP's website which will have links to ANTaR's web site and also the Koorie Heritage Trust's website, along with an explanation of the exhibition and workshops. The workshops were documented on video and with still photographs. Evaluation sheets were filled in by the workshop participants and a comments book was available at the reception and although there were not many entries the comments made were positive. We hired a publicist which was unsuccessful. Unfortunately there was nothing substantial written about the exhibition. We had an advertisement in the Saturday Age A2 section on the week the exhibition opened and we were included in the free listings, however the publicist had no luck in engaging any of the arts writers. This was partly to do with a late start for many magazines and also possibly to do with the challenging nature of the ideas in the exhibition. The catalogue is a lasting document and a useful tool in opening the debate on representation in race relations.

Artwork by Dianne Jones

Supported by PiXEL iNK MEDiA