"... In February 2010, I joined a group of volunteers of a solidarity brigade from Sydney who left for Ampilatwatja to help the community build their first house or the coordinating centre. Everybody called it the Protest House. There were many volunteers coming from different states to help build it. ... Ampilatwatja, located 320km north-east of Alice Springs in Central Australia, is a "Prescribed Community" under the NT Intervention and home for less than 1000 Alyawarr Aboriginal people. Their struggle to survive for the last 200 years has been made further difficult by the NT Intervention introduced in 2007, which, many in Amplilatwatja consider as “an invasion, total disempowerment and revoking hard won land rights”. In July 2009, the Alyawarr people of Ampilatwatja walked off from the Prescribed Area controlled by the government ... This photo series, 'Stars, Sky, Trees, Breeze', in my mind, is a reflection of the conflict between colonizer-imposed confines of a house and fences on one hand and on the other, the unbreakable bond of the aboriginal people with the land and nature in their traditional way of life."
Photo artist : Jagath Dheerasekara Curator : Djon Mundine
Space : At Vanishing Point Contemporary Art, King Street, New Town
Opening June 29, Exhibition : 30 June ~ 17 July; Thursday ~ Sunday 10:00 am ~ 6.00 pm