Exhibition
STAUNCH: An Exploration of Aboriginal Queer Liberation
Curated by Dominic Guerrera
Photo: Thomas Mccammon
Explore the exhibition
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Photo: Thomas Mccammon
Originally published Koori Mail, 18 December 2013, page 24.
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Photo: Thomas Mccammon
Michael Riley, Untitled (Bible) from the series Cloud, 2000, chromogenic print on paper, 129.5 x 175 cm, Collection of Flinders University Museum of Art 4428.
The white framed, window-mounted work is a large landscape orientated print of a Bible hovering in the sky. 1.75metres wide by approximately 1.3metres tall.
The sky is soft and grainy, colours of Azure and Sapphire blues are rich and deep on the left hand side and through subtle gradient meet luminous white hazy cloud in the centre, which trails off to the right hand side.
The black bible is face down and open, floating in the sky, slightly higher and just left of centre on top of the cloud patch. It is big, nearly half a metre in width and length. Its orientation is upside down, tilted on an anticlockwise angle, resembling a diamond shape. Its thick spine is illuminated by light giving it a gold iridescent glow. There is a large gold cross on the front cover, which has faint suggestions of clear sticky tape around its edges.
Collection of Flinders University Museum of Art 4428
© Michael Riley/Copyright Agency, 2021
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Photo: Thomas Mccammon
Collection of Catherine Carrol
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Photo: Thomas Mccammon
Arika Waulu, Untitled, 2021, wood, synthetic polymer paint, dimensions variable
This is a sculptural installation comprising two long, digging sticks elevated on a white plinth in front of a large black circle., The sticks, of unequal heights, point down into a pile of sand.
Totalling almost two meters high, starting approximately half a metre from the ground is a 1.5m matte black circle, painted directly onto the centre of the white gallery wall. In front is a tall white, narrow rectangular plinth 90cm high, 40cm x 40cm wide on which is presented a small heap of beige sand. Two wheat-coloured digging sticks, sharpened at the submerged end, stand upright, tapering down to beveled tips. Small metal brackets secure them to the wall, wider apart at their tops than the submerged tips, in a poise similar to animal horns. The black circle frames them centrally. The digging stick on the left is 84cm in length, its carved shape causes it to angle slightly to the right as it descends to meet the sand.. It is mostly light -coloured raw wood with some decorative pitting at the top, a thick black band painted in the middle, and two thinner gold bands either side of the black evenly spaced along it’s length,
The digging stick on the right is approximately fifteen centimetres shorter – standing 69cm in high. At the top it bows out wide, beyond the side of the plinth. Over half of it is painted. Gold covers the top of the stick, a long band of red beneath, with gold repeated underneath. Some thin black lines have been drawn near the top, separating the gold and red with small triangles. There is a small gold circle the size of a milk bottle lid, painted onto the red section, detailed with a black circle border and black dot in the centre.
The surface of both sticks bear directional markings from hand carving.
This is the end of the audio description.
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Photo: Thomas Mccammon
Originally Published: Lemon in the Chicken Wire, Magabala Books, 2016
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Photo: Thomas Mccammon
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Photo: Thomas Mccammon
Collection of Flinders University Museum of Art 3390
© the artist
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Photo: Thomas Mccammon
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Photo: Thomas Mccammon
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Photo: Thomas Mccammon
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Photo: Thomas Mccammon
A neighbouring tribe use to call us Guarai, the hostile ones. Why did they consider us hostile? Was it that we were staunch and fought for out rights. Was it that we had great pride and would defend our Country. I think its all these things.
My partner Ian Kenny bought me a concertina book from Japan which they call Orhions, and since 2016 these books have been a part of my practice as they represent queer love, a love gift between men. The book is a contemporary reimagining of ancient rock art, the layers of time and knowledge and feature the Dingo. The dingo is considered hostile, a pest that gets in the way of colonial progress (livestock farming) and is hunted and baited. Its our native dog but isn’t given the respect it deserves. It doesn’t have the same rights as other natives and to me it’s the queer outsider, fighting to exist and thrive. In this book I celebrate the Dingo and my tribe the Ngarigu, both consider hostile, but both proud and up for survival.
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Photo: Thomas Mccammon
Gift of Emeritus Professor JVS Megaw and Dr M Ruth Megaw; Collection of Flinders University Museum of Art 4335
© Brook Andrew/Copyright Agency, 2021
Meet the artists & curators
Dominic Guerrera (he/him) is a Ngarrindjeri, Kaurna and Italian person. Dominic is a poet, podcaster and is currently undertaking a Masters in Gender Studies at Flinders University.
In 2020 Dominic curated his first art exhibition circles to us, which featured at Nexus Arts and in 2021 was the guest curator of the Context Writers Festival with Writers SA.
Dominic’s writing has featured in Granta Magazine, Artlink Magazine, Cordite Poetry Review and in 2021 was the winner of the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Poetry Prize.
