Australian Aboriginal Artist Fiona Foley
From the series HHH (Hedonistic Honky Haters) by Fiona Foley |
Photography is just one of the mediums in which indigenous Australian artist Fiona Foley explores themes of sex, race and history and their various manifestations within her own life and Aboriginal culture.
The image above references historical images of the KKK yet flips the original terrorist archetype on it’s head by fashioning a new gang. Is the HHH a real group? No one will really know for sure. I suspect Foley’s point is not mockery but an attempt to examine the justifications for hatred towards someone “other” than you.
Fiona Foley will be featured in MOCADA’s current exhibit “Saying No: Reconciling Spirituality and Resistance in Indigenous Australian Art” on view now through November 6, 2011. Curated by photographer and artist Bindi Cole – who will soon be interviewed on Dodge & Burn.
Here’s the intro of the show’s description, I though it was most powerful:
The word “No” does not exist in the majority of the over 200 Australian Aboriginal languages, and where it does exist, this powerful word is reserved for the elders and is used with great care and ceremony. As these languages reach the brink of extinction, indigenous Australian artists are using contemporary art to assert their identity and culture and say no to racism, land theft and colonialism in an urban world.
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