Artist Statement

Digital HD video, duration 01:54 mins, col, sd, 2012. Courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane. One of 3 art works in the Naala-ba exhibition.

This work is Gordon Hookey’s response to the occupation of Australia by the establishment of Terra Nullius, and its subsequent legacy for generations of disempowered and uprooted Indigenous people. He uses the iconic Australian marsupial, the kangaroo, as his motif of resistance; ironically the same animal that is used to adorn the Australian flagship carrier Qantas. Hookey coined the term ‘Terraism’, taken from ‘Terra Nullius’, to push an Aboriginal agenda in the debate in regards to the continual fight for land. Terraism is an attempt to disarm the hypocrisy of the governmental finger pointers, whilst emphasising that Aboriginal rights are the last thing to be considered when it comes to the investments, decisions, and excuses made over land by the Australia government.

• Gordon Hookey, Waanyi, b. 1961, lives and works in Brisbane.. Gordon Hookey belongs to the Waanyi people. His work combines figurative characters, iconic symbols, bold comic­like text, and a spectrum of vibrant colours. Through this idiosyncratic visual language he has developed a unique and immediately recognisable style. Hookey locates his art at the interface where Aboriginal and non­Aboriginal cultures converge. He explicitly attacks the establishment and implicates our current political representatives. Hookey’s visual aesthetic is breaking new ground with a foray into stop­motion animation, as evident in Terraist. framerframed.nl/en/mensen/gordon-hookey

Carriageworks is a cultural facility of the NSW Government and is supported by Arts NSW.