You're My Warrior
You’re My Warrior
A review on Vernon Ah Kee’s exhibition: not an animal or a plant, 2017 at The National Art School
From 7th January until 11th March 2017
Article published in Tharunka: "Culture", March 2017
The Vernon Ah Kee exhibition at The National Art School in Darlinghurst comes at an incredibly important time for indigenous rights in Australia. On the 26th of January every year, masses of Australians come together to celebrate a day which is loaded with political incorrectness. Australia’s history the way we know it is dark and twisted. Like most former colonies of Great Britannia’s rule. We are now in the questionably ‘post-colonial’ time of history, many would argue we are still clinging to the racist times of colonialisation, we are not quite post anything yet. The simpler evidence lies within the celebration of ‘Australia day’. From the 7th of January till the 11th of March, Ah Kee had invited us as the audience to see his version of culture in Australia. To contemplate not only the day its self but also the overarching consequences of celebrating a day of racial injustice.
As I walk into the exhibition the history and culture of Sydney are embedded in the walls on which Ah Kee’s work hangs. NAS’s building used to be a prison, built by convicts, as Ah Kee’s work features predominately faces, this forms the connotations of being trapped in Sydney’s history. Walking into the exhibition you're faced with the vast empty grey spaces which surround the larger than life beaming faces. Personally questioning my role in this history. History is only important if we learn from it. We are invited to question the mug shots of Ah Kee’s relatives. His own son, Eddie Ah Kee, becomes part of the exhibition. His face asks you why Aboriginal youths are 24 times more likely to be incarcerated? Why scabies is a very real problem for 70% of Aboriginal children living in some regions of remote areas of Northern Territory? Just as Ah Kee’s older relatives question the atrocities they faced with the colonisation of Australia, the displacement that has never been sorted. Eddie, allows us to consider whilst drinking and celebrating our own definitions of our culture: why an Aboriginal person in Katherine, NT has a 1 in 4 chance of being homeless and why an Aboriginal person is more likely to see the end of their life in custody.
Contrasting the emotion that has been captured in these grand portrayals of Ah Kee’s family from the glint in Eddie’s eyes to the stillness of Annie Ah Sam, 2006 & (B), 2008. Not an animal or a plant, 2006/16 in Ah Kee’s signature text, sits loud and clear tells us the story of Ah Kee’s own Aboriginality, born 1967 in Innisfail, northern Queensland, where he was not considered an Australian citizen. This exhibition marks the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum which only then government considered Aboriginal as people, rather than part of flora and fauna of Australia. This statement not an animal or a plant is a declaration and allows Ah Kee to use his art as a political message in which he critiques popular culture in Australia, especially highlighting the dichotomy between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal societies.
The top floor of the exhibition contrasts the intimacy of the lower level where instead of being guided through Ah Kee’s family lineage; we rather become very aware of our small bodies in the large room and the large artworks. Humbled by the evil truth of Ah Kee’s perception of reality. We see Ah Kee’s portrayal of the events on Palm Island in 2004. In the hands of police, Cameron ‘Mulrunji’ Doomadgee met the end of his life. For death is punishment, the crime: swearing. Doomadgee's autopsy results indicated that he died from a ruptured liver; the island’s pathologist claiming they are the result of "a fall”. This result leads to riots on the island of which Lex Wotton was a part of; the subject of Ah Kee’s portraits: Tall Man, 2012 and I see deadly people, Lex Wotton, 2012; up on the top layer within the former Darlinghurst Gaol. Lex Wotton’s face demands truth for the audience. Wotton was declared the ring leader of the riots and sentenced to seven years in prison. This former Palm Island councillor has been witness to both the injustices of police brutality and ‘the system’ but as a hopeful sign to understanding the change that NEEDS to happen: has finally been awarded compensation. Wotton successfully argued that police had contravened section 9 of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975; that the police wouldn’t have acted the way they did if they had not been dealing with an Aboriginal community.
This exhibition review goes beyond a critique on the art and the exhibition itself. I had a lecturer once who told us, the lack of critique on Aboriginal art is inherently racist. Yet, I question my ability to critique Ah Kee’s exhibition as it portrays honesty in its rawest form. Ah Kee’s work reveals to me a part of culture in Australia that terrifies me. I want to hate his work, but I can’t. The work that rings this message most loudly is found in the back of the first floor: the shocking text and installation piece: born in this skin, 2008. The found toilet doors from Cockatoo toilet block made me feel sick, this isn’t art, it's beyond art. But through it, we see truth, and Ah Kee’s defiance to let us forget history.
His critique of culture is so important to understanding his perception of time. Ah Kee says on the front of the floor sheet: “I’m expanding the idea of what it means to be Aboriginal and what it means to be human. A lot of the problem this country has with Aboriginal people is that it struggles to see Aboriginal people as fully human.” Ah Kee has presented an opportunity to tell these stories. To talk about culture in Australia and how it is perceived. A reminder that we all look at the world through different eyes and different backgrounds. This exhibition speaks volumes in the importances of understanding culture far beyond what we read in newspapers and the history books. Each artwork acts an indicator to a truth, and a story, and our own interpretations of it.
*The statistics within this article have been taken from SBS’s National Indigenous Television (NITV) website.
