The Ninth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

89 ARTISTS Top: The Jealous One (still) 2017 Digital video: 16:9, 29:17 minutes, colour, sound Below: Wutharr, Saltwater Dreams (still) 2016 Digital video: 16:9, 28:53 minutes, colour, sound / Images courtesy: The artists Established 2013, Northern Territory, Australia Work along the northwest coast of the Northern Territory Artists: Cameron Bianamu, Gavin Bianamu, Sheree Bianamu, Telish Bianamu, Trevor Bianamu, Danielle Bigfoot, Kelvin Bigfoot, Rex Edmunds, Claudette Gordon, Ryan Gordon, Claude Holtze, Ethan Jorrock, Marcus Jorrock, Melissa Jorrock, Reggie Jorrock, Patsy Anne Jorrock, Daryl Lane, Lorraine Lane, Robyn Lane, Angelina Lewis, Cecilia Lewis, Marcia Lewis, Natasha Lewis, Elizabeth A Povinelli, Quentin Shields, Aiden Sing, Kieran Sing, Shannon Sing, Rex Sing, Daphne Yarrowin, Linda Yarrowin, Roger Yarrowin and Sandra Yarrowin Karrabing Film Collective is an Indigenous media group that uses filmmaking to interrogate the conditions of inequality for Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory, and retain connections to land and the dreaming. 1 The group features an intergenerational mix of more than 30 members of the Belyuen community, together with anthropologist, activist and gender studies professor Elizabeth A Povinelli, who has worked with the community since 1984. Together, they have sought to create a new model for Indigenous filmmaking and activism, by bringing together different nations and language groups, conceiving works through an infrastructure of communal thinking and experimentation, and seamlessly blending fiction and documentary traditions. Situated outside Darwin on the Cox Peninsula, the Collective was initiated following the Australian Government’s Emergency Response intervention in 2007 — measures taken in the name of protecting Indigenous children that have had devastating consequences for local communities. In their work, the Karrabing Film Collective shows how this interference has resulted in police entering homes at will, drastically increased rates of Indigenous incarceration for minor offences, cuts to social welfare, and communities being pressured into opening up their land to mining. These issues are explored through scripted scenarios and natural dialogue that together form an approach the group has termed ‘improvisational realism’. It is emphasised by the use of consumer-grade cameras and iPhones to create a highly inventive visual language that occupies a space between artist film, activist video and narrative cinema. APT9 features a survey of the short, single-channel films conceived and realised by Karrabing Film Collective since 2014. This includes Night Time Go 2017, which revisits attempts to remove Indigenous people from their lands during World War Two, and the refusal of Karrabing ancestors to be detained. In a parallel account of history, Karrabing Film Collective imagines an insurrection of Aboriginal communities in the Top End of Australia, ultimately driving out white settlers. Other works include The Jealous One 2017, which tells the story of an Indigenous man who battles bureaucratic red tape to get to a funeral service on his ancestral land; Wutharr, Saltwater Dreams 2016, where a family argues over the material and spiritual causes of their boat breaking down and stranding them; Windjarrameru, The Stealing C*nt$ 2015, which parallels environmental degradation and substance abuse; and When the Dogs Talked 2014, which explores the issue of economic self-determination and community decision-making. José Da Silva Endnote 1 For the Emmiyangal people of the Northern Territory, the word ‘karrabing’ describes the turning of the low tide, when salt waters recede to the ocean and return again. Karrabing Film Collective