Welcome to the Colony
A work by Clyde Rigney Jnr, Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Felix Weber, Johanis Lyons-Reid - on display at the Regional Gallery Murray Bridge from June 15 to July 22 2018 and at the South Coast Regional Arts Center in August 2019.
When you enter the Colony, who comes to visit? Navigate a bivouac of menacing, invasive colonies and colonial beliefs, to experience how Ngarrindjeri continue to maintain and share their cultural values in the tension between assimilation and treaty. “Nukkan Nganawi Ngarrindjeri Kringkari Ngoppen? Can you see my walk in your white world?”
Suspended in a surreal, timeless now, tinged with past, present and future colonial ventures, an array of cargo crates form a mobile bureaucratic envoy, dispatched to colonize this space.
HQ spews data, assessing and assimilating Ngarrindjeri values and dictating the terms of ‘settlement’. From its crates spill the colonizers cargo, flotsam, tools and toys, casting menacing shadows of invasion. Absurd technology prints and projects evaluation protocols and Colonizer roles, rendered as friendly, garish cartoons. A never-ending negotiation emanates from a makeshift tent. “Are you still here? Are you listening? Do I scare you? I am assimilated, I speak fluent Grey. We need to come to terms.”
Navigating this bivouac, audiences are invited to decipher the impact of colonial beliefs: What does assimilation mean to you? Which of the colonizers do you know? What is your experience of treaty and colonization? Who do you see when you look into the mirror? How do we want to share our limited time on this planet? How do we come to terms?
When you exit back into the colony through the Welcome gate, please take some information from the Community Notice Board.
Change Media presents two experimental art exhibitions, ‘The Colony’ and ‘The Unity of Oppression’ as part of its national What Privilege? Initiative.
Co-curated by Ngarrindjeri artist Clyde Rigney Jnr, Jen Lyons-Reid and Carl Kuddell, What Privilege? - The Colony is part of a national Change Media initiative with a range of diverse partners, to investigate how we can creatively notice, disrupt and reframe colonizing mindsets and behaviors that maintain privilege and reinforce oppression. It explores the reciprocity of our shared humanity: How is your liberation bound up with mine - and mine with yours?
The Colony is an immersive installation, combining projection work, sculpture, line art, poetry and audio-visual provocations. This work-in-progress is the first stage if a larger participatory immersive game and installation for 2018-20. Conceived as a cross-cultural experiment, featured artists included Jen Lyons-Reid [concept, line art, poetry, multimedia], Carl Kuddell [concept, sculpture, poetry, multimedia] and Ngarrindjeri man Clyde Rigney Jnr [concept, poetry, audio], Felix Weber [installation] and Johanis Lyons-Reid [video].
What is your experience of whiteness and identity in the context of Treaty and colonization? How do we want to share our limited time on this planet? How do we come to terms?
https://whatprivilege.net/create-blog/the-colony
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body, and by the South Australian Government through Arts SA.
The project has been supported by the Regional Gallery Murray Bridge.
Floor sheet info clockwise from entrance:
Entrance:
‘Community Notice Board’ - Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, lamp-post ads featuring What Privilege’s 50 colonizers and their 10 gangs, mixed media, 2018
Left-hand wall 1:
‘Can you see me?’ - Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Clyde Rigney Jnr, sculpture, Ngarrindjeri archival images of Grace and Daniel Gollan, mirror-glass, metal, mixed media, 3x 55cm x 45cm, 2018
Centre:
‘The Colony Cargo’ - Felix Weber, Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Clyde Rigney Jnr, sculpture, 5x 90cm x 90cm x 180cm, mixed media, 2018
‘Mission protocol’ - Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Felix Weber, Clyde Rigney Jnr, kinetic sculpture, wooden printer, canvas, mixed media, 2018
‘You didn’t see me coming’ - Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Clyde Rigney Jnr, mixed media, digital photo-frame, 2018
Left-hand wall 2:
‘This is not a toy’ – Felix Weber, Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, sculpture + shadow projection, wood, torch, 2018
Back wall:
‘Surveillance / Protection’ - Johanis Lyons-Reid, Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Clyde Rigney Jnr, video projection, featuring videos created in collaboration with Ngarrindjeri, 2018
Right-hand wall:
‘Three Cheers for Civilization’ - Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, dual channel video projection, line art, poetry, 2018
Right-hand wall/ entry wall right corner:
‘We meet again (are you still listening?)’ - Clyde Rigney Jnr, Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Felix Weber, sculpture, metal/ canvas tent, audio-video projection, 1.7mx 2.5m, 2018
Entry/ Exit wall:
‘Story Theft’ – Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Clyde Rigney Jnr, video projection, Ngarrindjeri values, line art, poetry, 2018
Exit:
‘Welcome to the Colony’ – Felix Weber, Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, sculpture, 4.5mx 3m, mixed media, 2018
Artists Bios
Jen Lyons-Reid and Carl Kuddell
Artistic director Jen Lyons-Reid and creative producer Carl Kuddell are Tallstoreez/ Change Media's co-founders and lead artists. Since 2002 they have explored multi-disciplinary practice in community arts, broadcast media, sculpture and live art, to creatively address social justice, environmental and human rights issues.
They run Change Media, a nationally acclaimed, multi-award winning community arts and cultural development (CACD) initiative. Change Media have delivered over 500 co-creative workshops with over 10,000 community participants across Australia. They have worked with remote, regional and urban communities, including partnerships with Ngarrindjeri, Bell Shakespeare Co, the Australian Festival for Young People, the Australian Refugee Association, in youth prisons, with the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, with people living with disability through Arts Access Victoria, and with numerous regional councils, arts, health and social justice organizations across Australia.
Their media work includes three documentary series for ABC and SBS and several award winning human rights documentaries, alongside cross-cultural, crime prevention and digital literacy resources.
On a national level Change Media interrogates critical literacy and colonial thinking: In 2013 they partnered in an Australia Research Council Linkage ‘Investigation into Harm in CACD’ with the University of Melbourne. In 2015 Jen was awarded the prestigious two-year Australia Council for the Arts Fellowship [CACD], which led to the development of 'Creating Together - what can possibly go wrong?' in 2017 and 'What Privilege?' in 2018, as a playful reflection tool to check our power and privilege in cultural work.
Clyde Rigney Jnr, director Ngarrindjeri Namawi Consulting, is a Ngarrindjeri man, writer, cultural awareness educator and former CEO of the Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority, the peak representative body of the Ngarrindjeri nation. Clyde was part of the Ngarrindjeri delegation during the recent Treaty negotiations. A long-term Change Media collaborator, Clyde co-wrote/ co-produced the Ngarrindjeri Culture Hub project and 8-part award-winning ABC iView series Ngarrindjeri Shorts. He co-directs this project with Change Media.
Felix Weber, PolymathLabs and WOMAD 2018-2021 site manager, is a tech, music and installation wizard. A long-term Change Media collaborator he delivered digital media workshops in communities across Australia. His recent work included site-specific installation and mapped video projections for the Adelaide Fringe and several large-scale events. He has access to loads of toys and is not afraid to use them.
Johanis Lyons-Reid, JohaniSLR Productions, is an award-winning emerging filmmaker, editor, photographer and musician. Johanis’ work includes several TV commercials for the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, Port Adelaide Football Club, the Welcome to Australia Foundation, an 8-part mini-series for ABC iView with Change Media and Ngarrindjeri, and photography for residents of Adelaide’s Jam Factory. He has also shot and edited most of Change Media’s award winning films since 2010.