A group of new media artists claim they were excluded from the ISEA event in Sydney this year.
The new media group Blackout Collective, which is made up of practicing Aboriginal new media artists, claim the IESA Sydney event was organised by an Australian based committee yet they posit that there was very little Aboriginal input and that they have been excluded from the event.
‘Not only have the Australian ISEA organisers excluded us from exhibiting at an international electronic arts event in our own country, but they have failed to manage the situation professionally,’ says Collective member Jenny Fraser.
‘We jumped through their hoops and proposed new projects a year ago, and have been on the short list since December with significant budgets being offered, only to find out final rejection notification the day before ISEA started in Sydney. It’s been a huge waste of money upfront and good energy in trying to meet the deadline with little useful communication from the organisers.’
Fraser says that working in a minority artform within a minority group means that there is little support from within the Australian arts landscape.
‘Because we work in a minority artform and in the minority Aboriginal art scene, we all struggle to represent as new media artists, with very little support or inclusion in Australia,’ she says.
Yet a statement from ISEA Director Jonathan Parsons says, ‘There is significant Indigenous representation at ISEA2013 and this includes the Welcome staged at Carriageworks for the launch of the ISEA2013 program that reflected the current resurgence of culture, language, law, kinship and ceremony that is happening in particularly NSW.’
The Welcome to Country featured songwoman Jacinta Tobin with the Wagana dancers from the Blue Mountains; Songman Matthew Doyle and the Jannawi dancers from Sydney; and Songman Albert David and the GIZ dancers from the Torres Strait Islands alongside members of the Redfern/Waterloo and South Coast Aboriginal communities.
ISEA also includes Aboriginal artists Yunkurra Billy Atkins, Gordon Hookey and Naretha Williams in the exhibition Naala-Ba (look future) at Carriageworks. The ISEA2013/Vivid Talks program also hosted a discussion on cultural mapping with Indigenous artists Brenda L Croft and Cheryl L’Hirondelle.
Indigenous artists Karen Casey, Brenda L Croft, Rea and Jenny Fraser herself are presenting at the symposium.
Fraser feels that this is not enough.
‘The Australian ISEA organisers consider the welcome performance as the be all and end all of an Aboriginal presence at ISEA Sydney, but really a welcome and performance are just a normal part of Aboriginal culture, which should occur at every significant gathering in our country, aside from that there’s a small exhibition of painters works that have a new life with animation, but where are the Aboriginal New Media Artists for ISEA in Sydney? Is this cultural apartheid?’ says Fraser.
Parson disagrees, stating, ‘ISEA2013 also provided a number of bursaries to encourage the participation of Indigenous artists in the conference. Rea was also on the curatorial committee assessing submissions to the pubic program. And finally one of our staff is Indigenous creative producer Merinda Donelly, who produced the welcome ceremony and assisted with the programming of Indigenous work in the public program.’
Despite being left out of the program at ISEA, Blackout is planning an ambitious presentation later this year. Superhighway across the sky will be presented at the imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival in Toronto Canada. Fraser will also travel to London to present at the inaugural indigeneity.net conference in the UK.
