Aboriginal Australians have been the subject of the camera’s lens since the introduction of photography to Australia. Largely conceived within the legitimising framework of ethnography, 19th-century photographs of Aboriginal subjects often circulated under very different guises - as souvenirs or mementoes created for a market hungry for images of a supposedly dying race. However, while such photographs undeniably highlight the impact of colonisation on Aborigines, the relationship between photography and indigenous Australians has never been a one-way-street. Nineteenth-century photographs of Aboriginal subjects can now function as an important source of family history while remaining testimony to the strength of indigenous culture. During the early 20th century, many Aboriginal Australians commissioned family portraits from studio photographers and the increasing availability of inexpensive cameras and processing enabled the biscuit tin of family snaps to assume the status of a contemporary sacred object. It is not until the 1980s however that Aboriginal photographers assumed a prominent position in both the Australian and international art scene. Taking the camera into their own hands, these artists re-take, re-present, re-claim, and largely re-configure photographic representations of Aboriginality. As Hetti Perkins states:

"Contemporary Aboriginal photographers have a legacy from the past and a responsibility to the future."

‘Is there an Aboriginal photography?’ asks Mervyn Bishop in his 1989 self-portrait of the same name. In this witty photograph, Bishop holds a tiny toy camera to his right eye; the gesture questions the desire to narrowly define and experience his work as ‘Aboriginal’. Is the ‘Aboriginal’ nature of a photograph necessarily discernible, and does identification of an artist as Aboriginal make a difference? While the absence of signs of the artist’s hand in the mechanical process of photography does complicate these issues, the photographs exhibited in Re-take share more than a coincidence of the artists’ race. While never claiming to speak on behalf of all indigenous Australians, the artists’ self-conscious identification and experience as Aboriginal Australians provides an alternative to the "mumbo, jumbo, landscape and fauna pastiches" of white forms of representation of Aboriginality. In ‘taking on’ the photographic medium, the works in this exhibition not only counteract denigrating and stereotypical representations of Aborigines, but highlight the vastly different voices (and concerns) encompassed by this label.

There are several reasons for the ‘explosion’ of Aboriginal photographers onto the Australian art scene in the 1980s. The huge political and social inroads made by Aboriginal people in the previous two decades are of inestimable importance, and the increasing access to public education (in urban areas particularly) ensured that the political awareness and strong cultural identities of these young artists were frequently coupled with an art school education. Australia’s Bicentenary in 1988 was an obvious point of dissension and led to a body of documentary photography that deals very directly with this issue. For artists such as Kevin Gilbert and Brenda L. Croft the camera becomes a register of activities of resistance during white Australia’s celebration of its 200th birthday. Both Gilbert and Croft fully exploit the medium’s documentary capacity, utilising it to convey an overtly political message. The scale of Gilbert’s mural-sized prints is deliberately confronting; escape from or denial of these issues is not simply a case of averting one’s gaze. The camera is a means to an end for Gilbert: in subordinating aesthetics to content the artist employs this tool to emphasise the debates surrounding Aboriginal rights and sovereignty. By contrast, Croft’s ‘gritty’ black and white photographs manage to convey the feeling of community and shared sense of purpose behind the public display of resistance. Michael Watson in Redfern on the Long March of Freedom, Justice and Hope, Invasion Day, 26 January 1988 1988 highlights the importance of humour in the face of adversity. Central to the composition of the photograph, the subject’s t-shirt is a lighthearted yet pointed reminder of the implications of terra nullius and Australia’s history of invasion. Ellen José, an artist who now works primarily in watercolour, printmaking, installation and video, chose 1988 to highlight the third world conditions in which many indigenous Australians continue to live. José’s photographs differ markedly from her often far more lyrical work in other media - in images such as The roofless house, Fletcher’s Lake 1988 she uses the camera directly to confront the viewer with issues that cannot be misconstrued.

1988 also marked the completion of After 200 Years, a three-year photographic project that worked to overcome the problems associated with documentary photography and its role in the creation and perpetuation of negative images of Aboriginal people. While placing itself squarely within the documentary tradition, the project sought to represent the diversity of Aboriginal life by "mov[ing] into everyday worlds of Aboriginal work, play, home and neighbourhood" . Twenty indigenous and non-indigenous photographers worked in 20 communities for a period of up to two months. The collaborative nature of the project ensured that the participants could control and direct the work of the photographer, as well as determine the selection of images and accompanying texts. The photographs of several of the indigenous photographers involved in After 200 Years are displayed in Re-take. Alana Harris’ engaging portrait Brian Higgins in his Royal Australasian Order of Buffaloes regalia 1987 embodies the spirit of this project; conveying a vitality, humour, and strong sense of community that affirms the importance of continuing traditions, while embracing contemporary existence. In depicting both the positives and negatives of life in certain Aboriginal communities, the photographs from the After 200 Years project lead us to question widely held assumptions (traditional / primitive / ’noble savage’ / victim) about Aboriginal life.

Post-1988 heralded a ‘second wave’ of work that differed dramatically in both style and content from the critical use of the documentary tradition that had occurred slightly earlier. While events such as EXPO in Brisbane and the Bicentenary acted as catalysts for blatantly political photographs, the impetus has shifted in later years to a vision that explores Aboriginal experience and identity in a far more personal, yet no less political manner. Colour comes into increasing use, and is employed to create an atmospheric, almost dreamlike state in Leah King-Smith’s photo-composition Untitled no. 3 1992 from the Patterns of Connection series. In these works, King-Smith has overlaid 19th-century photographs of Aboriginal subjects with her own contemporary painted and photographed images of the Australian bush. Not unlike the ‘ghosting’ created by double exposure in nineteenth century spirit photographs , King-Smith’s subtle layering attempts to encourage viewers to "activate their inner sight to view Aboriginal people" In working with source material from the extensive Picture Collection of the State Library of Victoria, King-Smith perhaps unconsciously echoes the very classification that will occur to her own work (contemporary / female / indigenous Australian artist) as it is collected by art institutions. As she states:

"The Aboriginal (Koori) people in the series are from 19th century photographs held in the State Library of Victoria’s Picture Collection. For the Koori community in Victoria, the original photographs are treasures bearing a storehouse of stories and family history. For these people, they symbolize the knowledge of Aboriginal heritage. Conversely, documentation of the collection in the library’s records is in the form of classifications and captions which reflect 19th century ethnographical terminology and popularized attitudes from the British cultural viewpoint. By replacing the Kooris in my work, I am showing my concerns about how the original photographs, and those generally of indigenous peoples in the 19th century, are evidence of the cultural bias of the civilization which produced them, and in so being, generate an inaccurate version of the presence of Aboriginal people from this point of view."

The influence of advertising and popular culture reveals itself in the up-beat works of Brook Andrew, Destiny Deacon and Rea. The photographs of Destiny Deacon and Rea engage the viewer through the use of the familiar codes of mass media, disguising, initially at least, the ‘twist’ contained within their explorations of race, sexuality and gender. The use of computers and the ‘rough and ready’ aesthetic of cheap bubble jet prints (in the case of Deacon) expands the viewer’s traditional understanding of ‘photography’. Deacon’s mock video cover Peach Blossom’s Revenge 1995 (a Mattress Actress Production) is a tongue-in-cheek satire of American war or mercenary-type action films that explores the positioning and objectification of the blak female body in photography and film. In her Look Who’s Calling the Kettle Black series of 1992, Rea juxtaposes black and white photographs of Aboriginal women ‘in-service’ with dictionary definitions of the terms used to describe them. The photographs are then ‘contained’ in deliberately amateurish computer graphics of contemporary domestic appliances, highlighting the destructive influence of Christian ideals that increasingly colonised the black female body by imposing morality in the guise of domestic cleanliness and bodily concealment . As Rea has commented, dying as a servant, as many of these women did, is simply another form of black deaths in custody.

The political power of the later works in Re-take gain their strength through their replacement of the confrontation of strident politics with strategies of humour and references to popular culture. The audience is engaged on a personal level, left to ponder the diversity of Aboriginal experience revealed in the photographs. At all times however, the history of photographic practice remains central. In taking control of photographic representation of Aboriginality, the artists in Re-take celebrate difference, while upholding the shared values of heritage, community, self-determination, and artistic expression.

Kelly Gellatly
Senior Assistant Curator, Australian Photography