In 2003 two artists toured to Aotearoa to attend the Waitangi Commemorations Youth Forum in Aotearoa. This forum was a part of the Waitangi Treaty Festival, where Jenny Fraser and Michelle Blakeney were invited to speak on the topic Aboriginal Art and Activism.
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| a Maori protester at Waitangi Day; Jenny Fraser and Michelle Blakeney with Maori Lawyer / Activist Annette Sykes |
Austria
In 2004 nine artists were featured as the new media arts component of "Spirit & Vision" a Trienniale featuring 94 Australian Aboriginal artists at Sammlung Essl in Vienna, Austria.
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| 'Spirit and Vision' outside the Sammlung Essl Art Museum, Vienna |
In 2005 three artists toured to Austria and attended the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, which was experienced through the many new media art exhibitions, forums, artists talks and screenings. Since 1979 Ars Electronica has been dedicated to the critical discussion of and reflection upon media culture. With its focal point situated at the intersection of art technology and society, it is above all the endeavour to nurture up-close-and-personal encounters with artists, designers, philosophers, sociologists, engineers and scientists from all over the world that endow the festival with its very special character. cyberTribe, online Indigenous Art Gallery founded by Jenny Fraser, has been showcased in Prix Ars Electronica for the past few years under the Digital Communities category.
An exhibition titled 'The Journey' opened in Austria on the 11th September at ARTstation in Kollmitzberg, featuring the works of invited guests Christian Thompson and Fiona Doyle, along with Blackout founder Jenny Fraser who were all in attendance for the opening reception.
Other works in the show were included by curator Theresa Fisher were from Aboriginal Artists and Dancers that had previously visited Austria and collaborated with local Austrian Artists. These included 'We are one, we are many' featuring performer Warren Clements (Wakaman) from Cairns, a Japukai Dancer at the time.
The Journey was celebrated with an Art Brunch – a regular event held by ARTstation to enable active dialogue, critique and reflection over locally grown food and wine.
The program of activities for the Artists also included a dinner at the opening of a retrospective exhibition for 65 year old Austrian Artist, Franz Ringels life-long work at Sammlung Essl in Vienna. Coinciding was figur / sculptur, an exhibition of the figurative sculptures in Sammlung Essl’s large private Art Collection, which included a Wangarra Spirit Figure sculpture by Maltida Marrparinga Pascoe from Arnhem Land. The Artists also had the opportunity to visit the studio of Austrian Artist Edi Bangerl, who has Celtic roots to the first people of Austria before the Germans.
The 2005 tour was initiated and led by Jenny Fraser and made possible with support courtesy of the Australia Council New Media Arts Board, Kooemba Jdarras South East Regional Council Fund and auspiced by NEWflames inc.
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| invited guests Fiona Doyle and Christian Thompson with Blackout founder Jenny Fraser, National Indigenous Times 2005 |
Mexico
In 2007 two artists toured to mexico with an exhibition of Australian and Canadian Indigenous short films as part of at the Electronic Art Biennale Arte Nuevo Interactiva07.
The four short films are presented by the online Indigenous gallery cyberTribe, active in the promotion of Indigenous artists internationally.
Jenny Fraser, the founder and curator of cyberTribe, exhibited 'The Great Australian Dream-ing', a work that juxtaposes suburban affluence with the lack of basic housing needs in Indigenous communities in an effort to portray the sense of irony and inequity.
Fraser set 'The Great Australian Dream-ing' to the classic 1958 Everly Brothers tune, All I Have To Do Is Dream, in order to "reflect the current Australian government‚s focus on aspiring to 1950s white societal values."
The other Australian offering is 'Starr', a stylised film set in 1930s New York whose eponymous character, a 24-year-old socialite, committed suicide after being sexually abused as a child. Starr was produced by photographer Michelle Blakeney, a Yaegl woman based in Sydney.
Canadian artist Shanouk Newashish presented Coureurs de Nuit (Night Hunters), which portrays the struggle of a group of Indigenous people to survive as a community after police challenge their habit of going running at night. The film is an experimental documentary made by youth from Wemotaci in northern Québec through the Wapikoni Mobile project, a travelling audiovisual production and screening studio that tours northern communities in Canada.
Terrance Houle of Albertas' Blood Tribe contributed The Wagon Burner, in which a boy burns his wagon to reclaim his identity. Set to music by Isho Bailey, the film reminds us that resistance is older than colonisation.
The exhibition was titled 'Travelling Light', a name that casts the four works as bursts of light similar to Queenslands Min Min Lights.
"To see the light is to wake up in remembrance and resistance of the contradictions that face us: inclusion vs exclusion, interior vs exterior, homely vs sterile, family vs individuality, sharing vs ownership, ancient vs modern", explained Fraser.
"To travel with it is to follow our own dreams and destiny in trust."
Travelling Light premiered at Queenslands Dreaming Festival, which took place from the 9th to 12th June 2007 on the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. It then travelled to the Galleries of Peon Contreras Cultural Complex in Merida, Yucatan for the Mexican Art Biennale Arte Nuevo Interactiva07 starting 15 June, with Michelle Blakeney and Jenny Fraser in attendance.
Interactiva is a biennale of new media and electronic art that first took place in 2001. Fraser exhibited in both the 01 and 03 Interactivas and was invited to exhibit or curate for Interactiva 07.
For more information about Travelling Light, check out
http://cybertribe.culture2.org/travelling.htm
Canada
In 2007 Michelle Blakeney and Jenny Fraser toured to Canada to attend the imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival in Toronto.
An online artwork, by Jenny Fraser was pre-selected for screening at the 8th imagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival in Toronto, Canada from October 17 to 21, and also picked up an Honourable Mention Award.
The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival is an international festival that celebrates the latest works by Indigenous peoples on the forefront of innovation in film, video, radio, and new media. The works accepted reflect the diversity of the worlds Indigenous Nations and illustrate the vitality of arts & culture.
Unsettled digitally retells nine stories through a mix of oral history and ongoing research, celebrating the people and place of Yugambeh and Mingunberri in southeast Queensland and beyond in Australia.
The interactive digital stories are offered through the use of old family photographs, Yugambeh Language, exploration of country and audio, marking place and time.
Curator Ahasiw Maskegon Iskew originally commissioned Jenny Fraser to make the work for Storm Spirits, an Aboriginal New Media Art initiative, hosted by Urban Shaman Gallery in Canada.
“The Storm Spirits premise arises out of Aboriginal concepts of the intersecting animist relations that inhabit the realms stretching from astronomy to meteorology, geology and down into microbiology, and offers them as new rhetorical designations of the relations that are evolving in the multiple streams of contemporary Aboriginal media art production. Storm Spirits focuses on Aboriginal artists whose work inhabits and maps out these intersecting spheres of influence and who contribute unique forms of vitality to the dynamic and essential interplay between Indigenous traditional knowledge and contemporary Aboriginal culture” said Ahasiw in his curatorial essay, 2005.
Unsettled also showed with electro-online, a survey of online art featuring as part of the electrofringe festival in Newcastle, 2007.
More Awards Night Photos
Asia
In 2008 the Blackout Collective featured alongside Asian Artists in vt2 (Vernacular Terrain 2). This was historical ~ for the first time a group of Aboriginal New Media Artists were included in the annual tour by IDA International Digital Arts, they were: Artist / Curator Jenny Fraser (QLD), r e a (NSW), Jason Davidson (NT) and Andrew Hill (QLD) and a collaboration by Christine Peacock, John Graham & Rebekah Pitt (QLD) with Djon Mundine (NSW) offering the Curatorial Essay for the tour.
Launched in Brisbane at the Block, QUT, the 2008 IDA project reflects a global commitment to exploring cultural identity through leading professional arts practice in digital media.
QUT, in partnership with IDAprojects and the Beijing Film Academy developed this international touring exhibition which was presented throughout Asia - including Japan and the Beijing Olympics Cultural Festival in China – and later included a tour of regional Australia.
Canada and the UK
In 2013, 4 artists will travel to the imagineNATIVE Festival in Toronto, to present and discuss Indigenous New Media Arts. Michelle Blakeney, Jason Davidson, Christine Peacock and artist/curator Jenny Fraser will attend the festival and also participate in a New Media Arts Roundtable.
Then Christine Peacock and Jenny Fraser will continue on to the UK and present at the Indigeneity.net conference.
In 2007 two artists toured to mexico with an exhibition of Australian and Canadian Indigenous short films as part of at the Electronic Art Biennale Arte Nuevo Interactiva07.
The four short films are presented by the online Indigenous gallery cyberTribe, active in the promotion of Indigenous artists internationally.
Jenny Fraser, the founder and curator of cyberTribe, exhibited 'The Great Australian Dream-ing', a work that juxtaposes suburban affluence with the lack of basic housing needs in Indigenous communities in an effort to portray the sense of irony and inequity.
Fraser set 'The Great Australian Dream-ing' to the classic 1958 Everly Brothers tune, All I Have To Do Is Dream, in order to "reflect the current Australian government‚s focus on aspiring to 1950s white societal values."
The other Australian offering is 'Starr', a stylised film set in 1930s New York whose eponymous character, a 24-year-old socialite, committed suicide after being sexually abused as a child. Starr was produced by photographer Michelle Blakeney, a Yaegl woman based in Sydney.
Canadian artist Shanouk Newashish presented Coureurs de Nuit (Night Hunters), which portrays the struggle of a group of Indigenous people to survive as a community after police challenge their habit of going running at night. The film is an experimental documentary made by youth from Wemotaci in northern Québec through the Wapikoni Mobile project, a travelling audiovisual production and screening studio that tours northern communities in Canada.
Terrance Houle of Albertas' Blood Tribe contributed The Wagon Burner, in which a boy burns his wagon to reclaim his identity. Set to music by Isho Bailey, the film reminds us that resistance is older than colonisation.
The exhibition was titled 'Travelling Light', a name that casts the four works as bursts of light similar to Queenslands Min Min Lights.
"To see the light is to wake up in remembrance and resistance of the contradictions that face us: inclusion vs exclusion, interior vs exterior, homely vs sterile, family vs individuality, sharing vs ownership, ancient vs modern", explained Fraser.
"To travel with it is to follow our own dreams and destiny in trust."
Travelling Light premiered at Queenslands Dreaming Festival, which took place from the 9th to 12th June 2007 on the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. It then travelled to the Galleries of Peon Contreras Cultural Complex in Merida, Yucatan for the Mexican Art Biennale Arte Nuevo Interactiva07 starting 15 June, with Michelle Blakeney and Jenny Fraser in attendance.
Interactiva is a biennale of new media and electronic art that first took place in 2001. Fraser exhibited in both the 01 and 03 Interactivas and was invited to exhibit or curate for Interactiva 07.
For more information about Travelling Light, check out
http://cybertribe.culture2.org/travelling.htm
 |
| Michelle Blakeney, Jenny Fraser and InteractivA Curator Raul Moarquech Ferrera-Balanquet in Merida, Yucatan |
In 2007 Michelle Blakeney and Jenny Fraser toured to Canada to attend the imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival in Toronto.
An online artwork, by Jenny Fraser was pre-selected for screening at the 8th imagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival in Toronto, Canada from October 17 to 21, and also picked up an Honourable Mention Award.
The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival is an international festival that celebrates the latest works by Indigenous peoples on the forefront of innovation in film, video, radio, and new media. The works accepted reflect the diversity of the worlds Indigenous Nations and illustrate the vitality of arts & culture.
Unsettled digitally retells nine stories through a mix of oral history and ongoing research, celebrating the people and place of Yugambeh and Mingunberri in southeast Queensland and beyond in Australia.
The interactive digital stories are offered through the use of old family photographs, Yugambeh Language, exploration of country and audio, marking place and time.
Curator Ahasiw Maskegon Iskew originally commissioned Jenny Fraser to make the work for Storm Spirits, an Aboriginal New Media Art initiative, hosted by Urban Shaman Gallery in Canada.
“The Storm Spirits premise arises out of Aboriginal concepts of the intersecting animist relations that inhabit the realms stretching from astronomy to meteorology, geology and down into microbiology, and offers them as new rhetorical designations of the relations that are evolving in the multiple streams of contemporary Aboriginal media art production. Storm Spirits focuses on Aboriginal artists whose work inhabits and maps out these intersecting spheres of influence and who contribute unique forms of vitality to the dynamic and essential interplay between Indigenous traditional knowledge and contemporary Aboriginal culture” said Ahasiw in his curatorial essay, 2005.
Unsettled also showed with electro-online, a survey of online art featuring as part of the electrofringe festival in Newcastle, 2007.
 |
| Jenny Fraser receiving the Honorable Mention Award for New Media, 2007 |
More Awards Night Photos
Asia
In 2008 the Blackout Collective featured alongside Asian Artists in vt2 (Vernacular Terrain 2). This was historical ~ for the first time a group of Aboriginal New Media Artists were included in the annual tour by IDA International Digital Arts, they were: Artist / Curator Jenny Fraser (QLD), r e a (NSW), Jason Davidson (NT) and Andrew Hill (QLD) and a collaboration by Christine Peacock, John Graham & Rebekah Pitt (QLD) with Djon Mundine (NSW) offering the Curatorial Essay for the tour.
Launched in Brisbane at the Block, QUT, the 2008 IDA project reflects a global commitment to exploring cultural identity through leading professional arts practice in digital media.
QUT, in partnership with IDAprojects and the Beijing Film Academy developed this international touring exhibition which was presented throughout Asia - including Japan and the Beijing Olympics Cultural Festival in China – and later included a tour of regional Australia.
 |
| from the catalogue 'vt2' |
In 2013, 4 artists will travel to the imagineNATIVE Festival in Toronto, to present and discuss Indigenous New Media Arts. Michelle Blakeney, Jason Davidson, Christine Peacock and artist/curator Jenny Fraser will attend the festival and also participate in a New Media Arts Roundtable.
Then Christine Peacock and Jenny Fraser will continue on to the UK and present at the Indigeneity.net conference.
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