The Fourth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

Cloud 2000 Three of 10 inkjet prints on banner paper, ed. 1/10 125 x 86cm each Collection:The artist The site for Dubbo was decided in the 1840s when a store was opened on the banks of the Macquarie River. The settlement became a stopping place for herds of cattle being driven overland to the southern state of Victoria. After conflict, war and invasion the area was cleared and farmed with cotton, wheat, sheep and beef cattle. The Wiradjuri, having survived smallpox, massacres, poisoning of watercourses and the Christian missionary influence, remain in the district today. 2 Born in Dubbo in 1960, Riley became interested in photography as a child. It all began with a home developing kit, which he bought at the local chemist. By the time he was a teenager, it was time to leave his 'country'. His parents enrolled him, aged 16, as a carpenter's apprentice in Sydney. However, he became exposed to a whole community of artists and art students who were either in training or working professionally. This cemented his interest in photography. 94 APT2002 In 1985 Riley had the good fortune to be mentored and taught by Australian photographer Bruce Hart at the Sydney College of the Arts . Hart convinced Michael to work as a technical assistant in the fashionable Design School, which allowed him access to lectures and courses offered to both Design and Fine Art students. Michael's constant instruction to students on how to make their photographs of toothpaste and designer running shoes look better gave him a superior technical ability, and perhaps a healthy disrespect for photographing excessive packaging . After leaving the college, Riley worked for a short time with a commercial agency called Rapport, before joining a group of young Koori 3 artists in Sydney in an artists' cooperative. The Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative was formally incorporated in 1987, with the aim of promoting the works of urban and city-based Indigenous artists. In fact, it was Michael who convinced the Australia Council Aboriginal Arts Board to simply 'write a cheque' to allow the group to rent its own exhibition space.The Boomalli group did not disappoint, and many of its early members have since excelled in education, curatorship and promotion of Indigenous art in Australia . 4 At the same time as his activities with the Co-operative, Michael Riley worked with the Indigenous Film Unit of the Australian Broadcasting Commission on several television documentary programs. Of special note is his film B/acktracker, which depicts the life of his grandfather, an Aboriginal tracker for the Police Service of New South Wales during the 1930s and 1940s. Michael also worked as one of the first directors for the Indigenous Cultural Affairs Magazine programs run by SBS (the Special Broadcasting Service, Australia's multicultural television station). His video installation entitled EDRA - Sydney people is on permanent display at the Museum of Sydney, and his most recent film is a video-installation entitled CONFLICT, commissioned by the new National Museum of Australia.