The 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial opens at the National Gallery of Australia and runs until 10 September with the theme “Defying Empire”. The exhibition contains works by 30 contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists from across the country who defy stereotypes, colonisation, definitions and untold stories. Exhibition curator Tina Baum weaves the narrative around the 1967 Referendum that counted our First Nations people in the Census for the first time and explores the resilience of our Indigenous artists from first contact with the British Empire to the long fight to achieve the 1967 referendum result to today’s continuing activism. WfaAR is intrigued that ‘defying Empire’ seems to be an activity assigned to our Indigenous peoples without any suggestion that it should be practised by the entire Australian population regardless of origins. We cannot help but compare this show with the recent “Artist and Empire” exhibition at the National Gallery of Singapore (see News for 14 February 2017) that pointedly inferred that a declaration of sovereignty by a nation of people includes all citizens, not just First Nations peoples.
Woman for an Australian Republic, Adelaide Ironside, republican poet and artist 1831-1867
Self portrait 1855, Newcastle Art Gallery NSW
