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| EYE/I'MMABLAKPIECE REA Boomalli Aboriginal Artists' Cooperative August 20 - September 29, 1997 Sydney |
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 Rea,
EYE/I'MMABLAKPIECE, |
Rea's
installation EYE/I'MMABLAKPIECE was one of blak
politics: it showed an awareness of the (Anglo-European)
historical construct of Aboriginal identity and marked an
attempt to reclaim and reinterpret it. Its second and
most recent showing at Sydney's Boomalli Aboriginal
Artists' Co-op was part of the 1997 Festival of the
Dreaming: a celebration of the art and culture of
indigenous peoples from around the world. Whilst EYE/I'MMABLAKPIECE
may have appealed to an audience already prepared for and
interested in what it had to offer, it was an unavoidable
and necessary sacrifice in order for it to be presented
within an entirely 'Aboriginal' context. EYE/I'MMABLAKPIECE was divided into two inter-related installations: an allegorical object-based component and a more confrontational photographically-based element. Both aimed to challenge the (white (male)) gaze by implicating it through the use of mirrors to literally reflect and return it. The object-based section was made up of two almost identical halves. In one, a large panel of yellow text on a black background hung on the wall, reading "This is my body". On the floor in front of this text stood a Jedda statue (a garden-gnome-like figurine), distasteful in its kitsch representation of an Aboriginal woman as a decorative object. At the Jedda's feet lay a formal gridded arrangement of square mirrors with a domestic preserving bottle placed at the centres of each one. And the bottles were filled with a bright yellow liquid that suggested urine. This combination of blatant metaphors for corporeality was repeated in a nearby region of the gallery with some minor differences. In the alternate version, the text was written in bold red upon black and plainly stated, "This is my blood". And it corresponded to a red blood-like liquid which filled the bottles. These two text pieces employ cliched symbolisations of cultural representation, but undermine the cliches with ambiguity. In this way, Rea depicts the multifarious aspects of contemporary Aboriginal identity with imagery which is simultaneously didactic and ambiguous. EYE/I'MMABLAKPIECE's other installation consisted of four large-scale digitally produced images coupled with four full-length mirrors. The objects (four necklaces and a floral dress) from which the photographs were derived were also on display. The photographs, entitled Traditional #1, Christianity #2, Civilisation #3 and Blakpiece #4, presented a chronological depiction of a forced assimilation process and culminated in a final image of contemporary self-determination. Each of the first three images contained a headless and, therefore, generic black mannequin wearing a necklace and clothed in a floral dress of the type previously worn by Aboriginal women on mission stations. The images differed only in the kind of necklace that was shown: wooden beads (in Traditional #1) evolved into rosary beads (in Christianity #2) and then pearls (Civilisation #3). The final work in the series, Blakpiece #4, condensed the concerns of EYE/I'MMABLAKPIECE into a single image. A self-portrait of the artist was bordered by four of the black mannequins, each one naked but for a string of beads tinted the colours of the Aboriginal flag. Rea held a camera to her face, intently focussed upon an imagined viewer, in an attempt to confront their gaze with that of her own. By doing this she inadvertently blocked access to the sight of her face. This revealed that a proactive stance towards one's own cultural representation may still not result in a totally truthful depiction. Hopefully, though, it will result in greater control for those concerned, allowing them to create a more positive discourse within which they can be considered. This, in a word, is "blakness". Phil O'Toole |
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 Rea, Blakpiece #4, 1997 |
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© The artist and |
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