SubTerrains Bankstown Biennale 2022: Sanctuary and Sovereignty is a First Nations-led project exploring the rich stories of culture and Country embedded within the landscape of Sydney’s south-western region: Bankstown.
Until 26 November, Bankstown Arts Centre is host to a range of artistic outcomes and activations, including painting, sculpture, light installations, canoe building, live performance, video installation, stencil work, embroidery, and weaving by twelve contemporary, mostly local western Sydney First Nations artists, which draw on critical historical narratives of colonisation, post-colonisation, war, and migration as well as works by artists from art collectives Juxta and Kantanka Creative.
Aroha Groves, Underneath it all, 2022, mixed media, digital projection, and audio. Photograph: Jason Nichol. Courtesy the artist and Bankstown Arts Centre, Sydney
SubTerrains featured artists include Abdul Abdullah, Cigdem Aydemir, Paula do Prado, Jamie Eastwood, Maddison Gibbs, Carmen Glynn-Braun, Aroha Groves, Dean Kelly, Kerrie Kenton, Jason Wing, Lucy Simpson and Nardi Simpson.
One remarkable story that makes an impact in this exhibition, is told through a sculpture made of metal and wool with a digitally projected wash by Groves, which speaks to the origins of The Voice to Parliament, stemming from the recorded pronouncement by Joe Anderson, “King Burraga,” of the need for First Nations representation in Parliament in the 1930s.
“Joe was a visionary, accessing cutting-edge technology to get this message into the mainstream on film. Now almost 100 years on First Nations people are still echoing these same calls to action,” says Biennale co-curator Nicole Monks.
“SubTerrains makes visible these questions and connections, giving voice to Joe Anderson’s descendants, local First Nations people and other marginalised cultures to create new works in response to these themes,” she adds.
