Hereby Make Protest

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Sharne Wolff

Carriageworks, Eveleigh

Like much of the history of Australian Indigenous people, the full story of the Aboriginal political movement has been slow to come to light. Although many people know of the establishment of the long running Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra and the more recent land rights case commenced by Eddie Mabo, few are aware that a group known as the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association was formed in the early 1920s. This group became the precursor to the politically motivated Aborigines Progressive Association, an all-Aboriginal organisation established in 1937 with aims to achieve citizenship rights and Parliamentary representation for Aboriginal Australians together with the abolition of the NSW Aborigines’ Protection Board.

Hereby Make Protest is an exhibition that displays archival documents including letters, petitions, original constitutional documents and radio transcripts alongside artwork from three contemporary Indigenous artists. Karla Dickens, Nicole Foreshew and Jacob Nash, focus on material sourced from these historically important organisations while simultaneously drawing on their personal histories. Dickens was born in 1967, the year of the referendum when Indigenous Australians finally achieved citizenship. Her cross-cultural work employs the mediums of sculpture and installation to merge traditional and contemporary ideas. Two new videos from Foreshew were commissioned specifically for this show while Nash’s work features hundreds of ochre-covered shoes that symbolise the power of the protest movement.

Pic: Hereby Make Protest (detail), 2014, Carriageworks, Sydney. Works by Karla Dickens, Nicole Foreshew and Jacob Nash.  Image: Zan Wimberley.Courtesy the artists.