Still in my mind: Gurindji experience, location and visuality

Still in my mind: Gurindji experience, location and visuality

12 August – 29 October 2017

Inspired by the words of revered Indigenous leader Vincent Lingiari, ‘that land ... I still got it on my mind’, this exhibition reflects on the Gurindji Walk-Off, a seminal event in Australian history that reverberates today. The Walk-Off, a nine-year act of self determination that began in 1966 and sparked the national land rights movement, was led by Lingiari and countrymen and women working at Wave Hill Station (Jinparrak) in the Northern Territory.

Honouring last year’s 50th anniversary, curator and participating artist Brenda L. Croft has developed the exhibition through long-standing practice-led research with her patrilineal community and Karunkgarni Art and Culture Aboriginal Corporation. Lingiari’s statement is the exhibition’s touchstone, the story retold from diverse, yet interlinked Indigenous perspectives. Still in my mind includes photographs and an experimental multi-channel video installation, history paintings, digital platforms and archives, revealing the way Gurindji community members maintain cultural practices and kinship connections to keep this/their history present.

Curator: Brenda L. Croft, in partnership with Karungkarni Art and Culture Aboriginal Corporation

Online Catalogue

Opening Programs

Saturday 12 August 2017

2.00 pm UQ Art Museum
Dr Felicity Meakins, Senior Lecturer, School of Languages and Cultures, in conversation with Gurindji community members and Still in my mind participating artists, including exhibition curator Brenda L. Croft.

3.00 pm UQ Anthropology Museum
Curator talk with Michael Aird, Research Fellow, School of Social Science and curator of From Relics to Rights.

4.00 for 4.30 pm UQ Art Museum
Exhibitions officially opened by
Mr Mervyn Bishop
Celebrated Australian photographer

Public Programs

Round Robin – Curating and Writing Indigenous Art: Tokenism, Pluralism and other Perspectives.
6.00 for 6.30 pm Wednesday 23 August 
How have curators and writers of Indigenous and non-Indigenous heritage presented Indigenous art, and what is at stake in a critical engagement with their work? Such questions are current and must continue if we are to effectively navigate and represent these plural perspectives, while addressing the concept of cultural “Otherness” and avoiding tokenism.

What does it mean to be a citizen? 
Tuesday 12 September 6.30 pm. Refreshments from 5.45 pm.
What does it mean to be a citizen? A passport and the right to vote? In Classical Athens, entry into the citizen body was determined by gender, birth and ancestry, while in the Roman Empire, many people enjoyed even the most basic of citizen rights. What does citizenship mean today to Indigenous Australians? To stateless refugees? Join a panel of political thinkers, curators and historians to examine these questions.

Developed in a partnership between UNSW Galleries, UQ Art Museum, and Karungkarni Art and Culture Aboriginal Corporation, with support from an ARC Discovery Indigenous Award, the National Institute for Experimental Arts, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language. Still in my mind: Gurindji location, experience and visuality is generously assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and the Indigenous Languages and Arts Program.