The Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi man on engaging with nature and each other – and a favourite NSW bushwalk.
Each week, Benjamin Law asks public figures to discuss the subjects we’re told to keep private by getting them to roll a die. The numbers they land on are the topics they’re given. This week, he talks to Jonathan Jones. The Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi artist, 45, is renowned for site-specific artworks – such as 2016’sIs the art world as sexy as it looks?
Oh, there’s nothing sexy about it! It’s a really grimy, dirty space to work in. It’s really hard. You’re baring yourself, you’re naked and pretty vulnerable.It’s so strange. I’m quite a shy person, but then I spend all my time trying to express ideas and exposing myself, which really doesn’t make sense. You might have to ask some of my exes. I imagine they’d say I’m really awkward; it’s all elbows with me.
Recently we moved to Bathurst, the first inland town in Australia. People crossed the mountains and came into Wiradjuri country, where my nan’s from. Martial law was declared . The British Army declared war on the Wiradjuri people and started a process of government-sanctioned killings. So coming home and looking at this landscape is really challenging; you think about those histories. Two hundred years ago isn’t that long ago. Uncle Bill always says it’s like having a secret in your family.
There are ideas around Aboriginality and this country – and how we all fit together – that we’re not able to have. And the thing that really irks me is that those conversations are often posed as problems: Aboriginal people are often problems and impediments; too difficult and too hard. In that scenario, we lose something. We lose something of ourselves and we lose something of this country. And non-Aboriginal Australia loses an opportunity to learn something amazing.
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