conVerge - Knowledge Systems

Knowledge Systems - Jenny Fraser

My name's Jenny. I'm from Queensland. My family come from the Bundjalung Nation. I'm pretty white for a black person. I'm a product of recessive genes - that was my science joke! I would apologise for my lack of pigment but Aboriginal people are always saying sorry. So I won't.

Linda Cooper wanted me to talk about the curatorial process of ConVerge, in particular the Indigenous component, the artists that we used and the artists that we didn't use but are part of the archive project. So originally we used the themes that Peter Sellars outlined. They were Ecological Sustainability, Truth and Reconciliation and the Right to Cultural Diversity. So you might be aware that there was a satellite exhibition that was in existence partly before we started working on ConVerge - that was Encounter 1802 - how the English met with the French down here on the South Australian coast and they also interacted with Aboriginal people. And apparently they've got the first Aboriginal art work on paper.

So we asked the question how has Australian Society, in relation to the rest of the world evolved in that 200 years and what has happened. So we talked a lot about the stuff ups so far, especially in relation to South Australia. Like how bad the water system is in the Murray River at the moment. We did try and talk about a lot of good things as well, like land rights, sea rights, fishing rights and hunting rights which are all happening around about now. So as part of the archive process I'm a member of a lot of lists, not just Indigenous ones and any information that we had that was relative to the exhibition or relative to the themes, we just forwarded them to each other.

So we focussed on any ground breaking news that was happening, particularly to do with land and sea rights. We weren't just interested in the art that people were doing, but we were interested in approaching artists in communities where ground breaking things were happening.

In Encounter 1802 the AGSA intended to use a lot of botanical drawings. So in particular I was interested in this exhibition exploring an Aboriginal version of botany. So I've got one CD to show you today which didn't end up in the exhibition but will be in the archive project and it's from the Wik Munghan People in Cape York, who developed a CD Rom that has the Aboriginal name of the plant, the scientific name of the plant and the Aboriginal uses. I'll go through that later.

I'm based in Queensland, Victoria Lynn is based in Melbourne and the rest of the curatorial team are based here. So we frequently came together and shared. Initially the meetings were a philosophical think tank which I think we all enjoyed because we didn't just concentrate on art or science. It was the bigger picture of what's happening in the world. The artists that we ended up working with from the Indigenous community were the Mangkaja People from Fitzroy Crossing. The reason why we chose them was that initially when we talked about the use of mapping in Encounter 1802, the sailors that came mapped their tracks - they stayed off shore. They came to parts around Adelaide and they mapped a lot of that area and did a lot of drawings. So this is kind of the reverse of that. Like having Indigenous people map their own country and tell you the story. I'm not sure if you're aware of, but those paintings were used in a court case for a land claim in Western Australia. I enjoyed working with Jason Hampton who did the seven prints that you see. Health is a big issue when dealing in Indigenous communities so I'm glad that has come out in his work. His work the kidney story, of how the kidney functions almost looks like a cell reproduction.

Some of the speakers earlier today talked about people's level of understanding of science and we need science to understand things. One of the things that I was quite adamant in discussion with the group was that Aboriginal people are always dealing with this level of science in their own world. They are always dealing with a level of medical addition which is thinking about thinking. They're constantly dealing in two worlds and they need an understanding of nature around them so they know their place in the world. Although we only ended up with two Indigenous works in the exhibition, there were a lot more that we dealt with so I'll just quickly show you the CD.

This was actually made with Richard Pierre Davies who is one of the artists from Mongrel (UK) who's in town at the moment doing a residency with three communities. This program is called 'Linker, which was developed by Mongrel and has been described as the disposable camera of software. This particular version is done with the Rangers up there, so the language group is Wik Munghan. So you can see that they've just added information so we can tell where they're from and learn about their river systems and landscapes. It has information on the plant ?Casarina or in English it's called the Oak Tree or Sheoak Tree. It is an important shade tree on the exposed ford dunes and are found on many beaches. They are a focal point along the coast line for people to sit under for shade. Sleeping under the trees is pleasurable as the sound of the wind whistling through the leaves helps to put you to sleep. It also has a strong timber that is used to make digging sticks, spears and fighting sticks for killing neighbours. Margaret Sellers was another artist from the same language group that was to be included in the archive. She couldn't make it because she's currently dealing with some sorry business. The Fitzroy crossing artists couldn't make it either because I think there's flooding and maybe some other things happening.