Presentation Topic: Ink to inkjet - paper to the net

ABSTRACT:

" To heal our wounded communities, which are diverse and multilayered, we must return to a love ethic, one that is exemplified by the combined forces of care, respect, knowledge, and responsibility " 1. - Bell Hooks
The power of love is a skill to overcome oppression. A force that can strengthen the Blak 2 community and Australia as a nation. What does 'love' mean to emerging and established Blak artists in this new century?

What's Love Got To Do With It?
The artists of What's Love Got To Do With It? approach this question by examining their own lives, histories and what it means to be Blak in a contemporary context. Love hurts. When Tina Turner stood at the basketball court fence, adorned in fresh acid wash denim and immaculately teased hair, crying out the lyrics of her 1980s #1 hit, she never dismissed the relevance of love - only the painful repercussions of this emotion.
These artists are brought together from various communities spanning Australia. Brenda L Croft, Destiny Deacon and Fiona Foley established their practices in Sydney and Melbourne in the early 1980s with Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative. Julie Gough and Clinton Nain came to prominence in Victoria and Tasmania in the late 1980s to early 1990s. Whilst these artists have established successful national and international careers there are younger artists emerging - such as Jenny Fraser (Queensland) and Jonathan Jones (New South Wales)
Blak art is disconcerting in its immediate reminder that denial of Australian history is arrested development. Amnesia is an inherent condition of Australian patriotism and nationhood. 3 The diversity of contemporary Blak culture is explored through a myriad of subjective experiences.
This collection of work is not palatable, not nice and not Easy Listening.
Blak art functions as a bricolage, in the construction of a new cultural form through overlaying the remnants of the old. The work illustrates the individual fight and strength drawn from Blakness. Contemporary artists of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage are defining what it means to be Blak in this country today.

BIONOTE:

Christian Bumbarra Thompson is a Bidjara / Pitjara man from the Springsure Carnarvon Gorge region of Southwest Queensland and is also of German heritage. Thompson completed his Bachelor of Visual Art in Fine Art at the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba and Honors in Fine Art Sculpture at RMIT University. Christian has worked on various Visual Arts related projects in both an artistic and educational capacity with the Australian Network of Art and Technology, Art Gallery of South Australia, Australia Council for the Arts and Melbourne Museum. Thompson was the curatorial assistant to Brenda L Croft for the 2000 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art 'Beyond the Pale', Australian Indigenous Art. His work has been shown in Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore, Noumea and most recently in Finland for LUMO Intohimo the Photographic Triennial of Finland. Thompson has been an active spokesperson within the arts and has lectured in Fine at Theory at RMIT and VCA. Thompson has also given papers at the Contemporary Centre for Photography and at the United Nations Indigenous Peoples and Racism Conference held at Sydney. Thompson is undertaking a Ph.D. This year at Melbourne University exploring Kitsch and contemporary Aboriginal Art. Christian is currently the Indigenous Officer at the Victorian College of the Arts.