MFTWA

In Visible Ink is a Museum of Freedom and Tolerance endeavour that makes visible the invisible. Through sharing and amplifying stories, histories, art, conversations and projects that inspire people to see differently, it aims to make changes towards a more just world. For more click here.

Our fourth day of programming for the 2021 In Visible Ink Symposium focused on stories of migration, and of the migrant and refugee experience. 

Children of the Sea is the culmination of a research project by Jay Emmanuel, a play that shares the journeys of young maritime refugees who came to Australia by boat. Using satire and humour, the play centres around the stories of four characters who struggle with ideas of home, identity, adolescence and love as they navigate the absurdities of the adult world in which they drift.

BoatBird is a creation of artists and writers Jo Pollitt and Lilly Blue, telling a beautiful visual tale of perpetual arrival for children and adults alike to explore. 

We convened a conversation about voice and agency for diverse and creative voices to tell stories that make visible universal themes of childhood, profound loss and unexpected joy, and bring stories out of sight to front of mind in 2021, the 20th anniversary of the Tampa Crisis in Australia.

Our creative and articulate speakers for this session (bios below) were:

Speaker biographies:

Jay Emmanuel is the founder and Artistic Director of Encounter. Born in India and based in Perth, Jay is a performer, writer and director. A graduate of Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris, his works are distinguished by his unique methodology of collaborative theatre-making, melding contemporary theatrical forms with rigorous community engagement and enquiry into authentic storytelling often involving non-professional actors on stage.

Lilly Blue is an interdisciplinary artist and educator with a background in pedagogical practice, studio research and community engagement. She currently works as Manager of Learning and Creativity Research at the Art Gallery of Western Australia collaborating on projects that amplify the experience of children in relation with the world as critical and valuable in developing culture for multigenerational public audiences. She is co-Creative Director of contemporary arts publication/platform BIG Kids Magazine, and has worked internationally delivering arts residencies, professional development, creative commissions and exhibitions.

Dr Jo Pollitt is is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Education at Edith Cowan University. As an interdisciplinary artist and scholar Jo's work is grounded in a twenty-year practice of  improvisation and dramaturgy across multiple performed, choreographic and publishing platforms. She is co-founder and director of the creative arts publication BIG Kids Magazine and is currently invested in methods of expanded embodiment and creative response in researching children's relations with climate futures.

Marziya Mohammedali is a wordsmith, photographer, designer, educator and artist. Their creative practice focuses on narratives of dissent, identity, migration and transition, working for social justice. They have documented several protest movements within Perth and have been involved in creative and digital activism for various issues. They are also the Arts Editor at Jalada Africa, an online pan-African publishing platform. They are currently undertaking a PhD focusing on identity, protest, and photography, and recently held their first solo exhibition, 'we are the ones we have been waiting for'.

In Visible Ink is a Museum of Freedom and Tolerance endeavour that makes visible the invisible. Through sharing and amplifying stories, histories, art, conversations and projects that inspire people to see differently, it aims to make changes towards a more just world.

The Carrolup artworks were produced by Aboriginal children stolen from their families and detained at the Western Australian Carrolup Native Settlement in the 1940s. The power of their artworks to illuminate a dark history and help us understand the impact of intergenerational trauma is enormous.

We convened a conversation about how Curtin University is catalysing the artworks into a Centre that will become a focal point for understanding the history and consequences of dispossession.

Joining us for this important session are our excellent speakers (Bios below):

Speaker bios:

Michelle Broun is a proud Yindjibarndi woman living and working on Whadjuk Nyoongar Boodja.  She grew up between the Pilbara and the Southwest-studying and working in Perth, Roebourne, Broome and Margaret River.  Michelle has worked at many levels and across many platforms to produce, promote and present Aboriginal arts and culture.  She is a curator, cultural planner and creative producer-engaging with community and collaborating with artists to create thought -provoking and moving experiences for audiences, to build bridges between cultures and find common ground on which to move forward.  She was the lead curator of the Ngalang Koort Boodja Wirn exhibition at the Museum of Western Australia which opened in 2020.  She is currently the Curator of Australian First Nations Art at John Curtin Gallery, focusing on the research, presentation and community engagement related to the collection of  artworks produced by the child inmates of the Carrolup Native Settlement.

Tony Hansen is an Aboriginal man with connections to the South-West Boojarah region, Wilman tribe, which is located in Wagyl Kaip and Southern Noongar region. After being forcibly removed from his family Tony was placed at the Marribank Mission, formally known as Carrolup Native Settlement, for 15 years. Many years later, Tony was able to reconnect with his family, and he now values the opportunity to be a voice of Stolen Generation survivors. Tony is now Chair of the Carrolup Elders Reference Group.

Chris Malcolm is the Director of John Curtin Gallery. He has worked with some of the most influential contemporary artists from around the world, curating and designing exhibitions over the last 25 years. Moving from a career as a practising artist represented in the collections of the Art Gallery of Western Australia and the City of Fremantle, he commenced working with Curtin University’s Art Collection in 1989.  He was involved in the development of the John Curtin Gallery which opened at Curtin University in 1998 as Australia’s largest University Art Museum and has been Director since 2009.

Malcolm has curated over 15 major international exhibitions for the Perth Festival and was a Founding Curator of the Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth – a major international festival project launched in 2002 showcasing innovative new media arts practise.  He has received the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in 2002 and 2019 and has developed many exhibitions in collaboration with leading researchers across a range of disciplines from nanotechnology to radio astronomy – including Shared Sky, which has been touring internationally since 2014. As Director, he has overseen the convergence of the John Curtin Gallery’s collection development with its exhibition programming to focus on issues of diversity, equity and social justice.

In Visible Ink is a Museum of Freedom and Tolerance endeavour that makes visible the invisible. Through sharing and amplifying stories, histories, art, conversations and projects that inspire people to see differently, it aims to make changes towards a more just world. Find out more here.

Day 3 of In Visible Ink 2021 was an all Indigenous program of tours, talks and workshops. We convened this rich conversation around how local creatives are using the arts in innovative ways to reveal and bring back to life hidden and erased landscapes in Perth. The three artistic works featured across this discussion were Galup, That Was My Home and Always Wadjemup.

Our speakers in this session included (speaker bios below): 

Ian Wilkes is a Noongar theatre-maker, dancer and performer. He has directed several plays including Yirra Yaakin’s Boodjar Kaatijin and Songbird and performed numerous lead roles including in Yirra Yaakin’s Hecate and Ochre’s Kwongan for Perth Festival, CO3’s The Line at State Theatre WA and Honey Spot at the Sydney Opera House. Ian is also a founding facilitator of Culture 2.0, Yirra Yaakin’s regional youth engagement program. Ian is currently a writer and performer of on-country interactive performance Galup about the history of Lake Monger in Perth which includes an oral history from Elder Doolann Leisha Eatts about a massacre at the lake and was originally commissioned by International Art Space as part of the Know Thy Neighbour #2 program. Ian is also writer and director of the upcoming VR work of Galup.

Poppy van Oorde-Grainger is a filmmaker, artist and producer. Her work has been broadcast widely and presented at international festivals and galleries. Poppy first gained national recognition as the winner of the Fremantle Print Award and then later the Australia Council Kirk Robson Award for leadership in Community Arts and Cultural Development. Poppy was a director and producer on Burdiya Mob and Ngaluk Waangkiny projects and Beyond Empathy’s Excursions project. Poppy is currently a director, writer and producer of the on-country immersive theatre performance and VR work Galup and is director of not-for-profit production company Same Drum.

Samara King is a Karajarri woman from Broome, Western Australia.  She was part of the 2020 Emerging Curator program between Rottnest Island Authority and WA Museum and is the co-curator of Always Wadjemup; a multimedia digital exhibition that reflects the experience of working on Wadjemup (Rottnest Island).

Denise Cook is an historian, oral historian and museum curator with over 30 years’ experience. She is the author of That Was My Home, which explores the hidden histories of the Noongar camps along the Swan River. Denise has documented the voices of Noongar people, juxtaposed with information from the archives, photographs and stories from others in the community. She specialises in WA history, particularly local and Noongar history, as well as protocols for non-Aboriginal people working in the Noongar community. That Was My Home explores the hidden histories of the Noongar camps around Fremantle, Swanbourne and Shenton Park in the suburbs of Perth along the Swan River and was lead by Dr Denise Cook and Lynnette Coomer.

Lynnette Coomer is a Noongar woman who lived in the Shenton Park camps in the 1950s with her parents, grandmother and siblings. Later she, and the next youngest children, were taken to Roelands Mission.

In Visible Ink is a Museum of Freedom and Tolerance endeavour that makes visible the invisible. Through sharing and amplifying stories, histories, art, conversations and projects that inspire people to see differently, it aims to make changes towards a more just world.

The Furnace is a Western Australian film that illuminates the forgotten history of Australia’s ‘Ghan’ cameleers, predominantly Muslim and Sikh men from India, Afghanistan and Persia, who opened up the Nation’s desert interior, and formed unique bonds with local Aboriginal people. It shines a light on a crucial yet little known chapter of Australia’s history, celebrating the cultural diversity of early pioneers.

We convened a screening of The Furnace and a following conversation about the importance of shining a light and giving visibility to the multiple and diverse histories of the Australian landscape.

This discussion includes our incredible speakers (bios below):

Speaker biographies:

Affy Bhatti (Chair) is a British Pakistani man in Australia. He is Director of The Crescent Institute, Co-Founder of the Muslim Professional Network Perth, and a Management Consultant. Affy was a key supporter of The Furnace and assisted production with consultation within the Australian Muslim community.

Roderick MacKay is a writer/director from Perth, Western Australia. With a formal training in visual arts, Roderick is a highly visual storyteller. In 2020, Roderick's debut feature film, The Furnace, premiered as part of the official selection for the 77th Venice Film Festival. Roderick's short films include Trigger and Factory 293.

Rosie Sitorous is an emerging writer based in Western Australia. She has an established creative practice in spoken word performance, music and comedy, and works as a linguist with rural, regional and remote Aboriginal communities. Much of Rosie’s writing reflects on her relationship with her late mother, a great influence on her love of language, as well as her search, as a ‘third culture kid’, for place and belonging in contemporary Australia. Rosie consulted for The Furnace on the Badimia language along with Godfrey Simpson.

Gary Bonney is an educator and storyteller and has undertaken a number of roles in regional and remote areas of Western Australia. Gary’s experience has included work in secondary education, with at risk youth, young people in residential settings and with Indigenous people in the Goldfields and Kimberley regions of Western Australia. Gary has a passion for working in community with marginalised people, and educating others to increase awareness, access, social equity and understanding. Gary is an early career screenwriter and works with Revelation Film Festival and was Associate Producer for The Furnace.

Harjit Singh is one of the founders of the Australian Sikh Heritage Association which documents and shares history on the early contribution of Sikhs in Australia. Harjit is also one of the founders of Turbans and Trust, which has generated over 10,000 one on one conversations between strangers to build an understanding of respect and equality. Harjit’s passion for civil rights has driven him to work on close to a hundred civil rights matters across Australia, building understanding without confrontation wherever possible. Harjit wants the turban to be recognised as being just as Australian as the Akubra! Harjit worked as the primary Sikh Consultant on The Furnace.

In Visible Ink is a Museum of Freedom and Tolerance endeavour that makes visible the invisible. Through sharing and amplifying stories, histories, art, conversations and projects that inspire people to see differently, it aims to make changes towards a more just world.

The Black Lives Matter movement transformed global consciousness in 2020, bringing questions relating to the stories we make visible in our civic and popular culture to the fore as statues and monuments around the world tumbled.

In solidarity with the protests, the names of some of the hundreds of Indigenous people who have died in custody were projected on a landmark sculpture in Walyalup (Fremantle) during 2020, bringing into focus place, visibility, history and the resonance of the BLM movement in Western Australia, the state with the largest number of Indigenous deaths in custody.

To launch our 2021 In Visible Ink Symposium, we convened conversations around the themes of deconstruction and reconstruction of visual and civic culture. 

This dynamic panel discussion on the reconstruction and reclamation of sidelined cultural identities through subverting music, fashion, design and pop culture and features speakers (biographies below):

Join the Museum of Freedom and Tolerance and special guests on a multi-sensory journey as we provoke our audience to question the visibility of dominant civic and cultural landscapes and landmarks, learn how to see differently, and actively seek a fairer and more just approach to systemic racism, discrimination, incarceration and inequality.

Speaker biographies:

Sisonke Msimang (Chair) is the author of Always Another Country:  A memoir of exile and home and The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela. She is a South African writer whose work is focussed on race, gender and democracy. She has written for a range of international publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Guardian, Newsweek, Bloomberg, and Al Jazeera.   Sisonke has held fellowships at Yale University, the Aspen Institute and the Bellagio Centre.  She is currently a fellow at the WISER Institute, at the University of the Witwatersrand.Chris Luu grew up in Perth, Australia where he landed his first post-University job as an Architect. He then went onto studying Creative Advertising and Graphic Design. He currently works as an Art Director at Johannes Leonardo (New York City) where he has been awarded numerous global accolades including the prestigious D&AD Pencil. Outside of work Chris skates for Vans Australia. He is also a skateboard historian, photographer, artist, tinkerer and won’t-stop maker. She is the Curator of the Literature and Ideas Festival.

Isaac Garang is a designer of South Sudanese background currently based in Perth.  His primary platform for self expression is the clothing brand, IXIII (pronounced I X Three). See the ixiii store here.

Luel de Kuek is a freelance graphic and product designer.  He strives to use his art to tell as many stories to as many people as possible, as art has an intrinsic and boundless nature to cross artificial boundaries of skin, colour or creed.

Rhys Paddick is an Aboriginal educator, presenter and artist. As a content creator, Rhys has created a niche market of Australian Aboriginal wholesome memes on Instagram page @the_wholesome_yamatji. Rhys has consulted with various organisations to help spread their messages using effective and Aboriginal relevant captions, memes, graphics and humour.

In Visible Ink is a Museum of Freedom and Tolerance endeavour that makes visible the invisible. Through sharing and amplifying stories, histories, art, conversations and projects that inspire people to see differently, it aims to make changes towards a more just world.

The BLM movement transformed global consciousness in 2020, bringing questions relating to the stories we make visible in our civic and popular culture to the fore as statues and monuments around the world tumbled.

In solidarity with the protests, the names of some of the hundreds of Indigenous people who have died in custody were projected on a landmark sculpture in Walyalup (Fremantle) during 2020, bringing into focus place, visibility, history and the resonance of the BLM movement in Western Australia, the state with the largest number of Indigenous deaths in custody.

To launch our 2021 In Visible Ink Symposium, we convened conversations around the themes of deconstruction and reconstruction of visual and civic culture.

This powerful opening conversation led by Aboriginal women and women of colour, featured a line up of amazing speakers (see bios below):

Join the Museum of Freedom and Tolerance and special guests on a multi-sensory journey as we provoke our audience to question the visibility of dominant civic and cultural landscapes and landmarks, learn how to see differently, and actively seek a fairer and more just approach to systemic racism, discrimination, incarceration and inequality.

Speaker biographies:

Sisonke Msimang is the author of Always Another Country: A memoir of exile and home and The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela. She is a South African writer whose work is focussed on race, gender and democracy. She has written for a range of major international news publications and has held fellowships at Yale University, the Aspen Institute and the Bellagio Centre. She is currently a fellow at the WISER Institute, at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Shaheen Hughes is CEO of The Museum of Freedom and Tolerance. Shaheen has a background in international, national and state policy and advocacy, a master’s degree in International Communications and an honours in Art History and English Literature. Shaheen is a tireless advocate of the arts, passionate about creating diverse and inclusive environments and social justice solutions and committed to fighting hate and intolerance.

Suvendrini Perera is a Curtin Distinguished Professor and Research Professor of Cultural Studies in the School of Media, Culture & Creative Arts. She has published widely on issues of social justice, including decolonisation, race, ethnicity and multiculturalism, refugee topics, critical whiteness studies and Asian-Australian studies. Suvendi has combined her academic career with participation in policymaking, public life and activism.

Hannah McGlade is an Indigenous human rights lawyer, Associate Professor at Curtin Law School, and member of the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues. Her book Our Greatest Challenge, Aboriginal children and human rights received the 2011 Stanner Award. Hannah has been at the forefront of the development of key organisations in Perth and WA, in relation to Aboriginal women legal supports, Noongar radio and Stolen Generations and healing.

Anna Kesson is an immigrant art historian, writer and curator. She is Assistant Professor of Black Diasporic Art with a joint appointment in the Depts of African American Studies and Art and Archaeology at Princeton. Her first book is Black Bodies, White Gold: Art, Cotton & Commerce in the Atlantic World.

In this episode, Marilyn Metta, Imam Yahya Ibrahim, and Fadzi Whande reflect on how we might respond to and work against racist violence in the future. The panel is introduced by Yirga Woldeyes.  For video from the event, including poetry and the opening ceremony, please visit the Deathscapes engagements page. 

Who are "we"? who is "one of us"? Who are we part of? Whose humanity do we recognise as akin to ours?

In the wake of the Christchurch massacre, Easter bombings in Sri Lanka,  and recent attacks on US synagogues, we continue to face questions of  them and us as national and global tensions play out in new  configurations of violence and terror.

This symposium - jointly organised by the School of Media, Creative  Arts and Social Inquiry, Curtin University & The Museum of Freedom  and Tolerance - considered the fraught term one of us, exploring  questions of the normalization of racism, everyday Islamophobia, and the  connections between various forms of othering - us and them - in  Australia and elsewhere.

Artwork for the episode is by the talented Yi Xiao Chen @jyxchen,  featuring the  work of master calligrapher Zhang Di Hua and Osama Mah.  The flowers are painted with the words Freedom and Tolerance and were  part of a garden of healing, projected on the Perth Cultural Centre  screen in  tribute to the victims of the Christchurch Massacre, on the  evening of the symposium.

In this episode, Sabah Rind, Kim Scott, Ayman Qwaider and Sky Croeser reflect on what 'One of Us' means in the context of the Christchurch massacres and other recent acts of racist violence. The panel is introduced by Rabia Siddique.   For video from the event, including poetry and the opening ceremony, please visit the Deathscapes engagements page. 

Who are "we"? who is "one of us"? Who are we part of? Whose humanity do we recognise as akin to ours?

In the wake of the Christchurch massacre, Easter bombings in Sri Lanka,  and recent attacks on US synagogues, we continue to face questions of  them and us as national and global tensions play out in new  configurations of violence and terror.

This symposium - jointly organised by the School of Media, Creative  Arts and Social Inquiry, Curtin University & The Museum of Freedom  and Tolerance - considered the fraught term one of us, exploring  questions of the normalization of racism, everyday Islamophobia, and the  connections between various forms of othering - us and them - in  Australia and elsewhere.

Artwork for the episode is by the talented Yi Xiao Chen @jyxchen,  featuring the  work of master calligrapher Zhang Di Hua and Osama Mah.  The flowers are painted with the words Freedom and Tolerance and were  part of a garden of healing, projected on the Perth Cultural Centre  screen in  tribute to the victims of the Christchurch Massacre, on the  evening of the symposium.

This episode introduces 'One of Us?' an event held to reflect on the Christchurch Massacre. For video from the event, including poetry and the opening ceremony, please visit the Deathscapes engagements page.

Who are "we"? who is "one of us"? Who are we part of? Whose humanity do we recognise as akin to ours?

This symposium - jointly organised by the School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry, Curtin University & The Museum of Freedom and Tolerance - considered the fraught term one of us, exploring questions of the normalization of racism, everyday Islamophobia, and the connections between various forms of othering - us and them - in Australia and elsewhere.