Christian says: “I was drawn to elements of opulence, ritual, homage, fragility, melancholy, strength and even a sense of play operating in the photographs. The simplicity of a monochrome and sepia palette, the frayed delicate edges and the cracks on the surface like a dry desert floor that reminded me of the salt plains of my own traditional lands”.
SYNOPSIS
In We Bury Our Own, leading contemporary Aboriginal Australian artist Christian Thompson (Bidjara) presents a new body of work that explores the spiritual repatriation of archival materials in the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford.
Repatriation is the act of returning something to its country or place of origin. While the physical repatriation of human remains, objects and photographs has been accepted as an important museum practice in recent years, many objects and images remain in the storage facilities of distant museums. Thompson focuses on objects in the Pitt Rivers archives like historic photographs of Australian Aboriginals, and invents a way for them to be repatriated spiritually. Christian ponders:
“this is what art is able to do, perform a ‘spiritual repatriation’ rather than a physical one, fragment the historical narrative and traverse time and place to establish a new realm in the cosmos, set something free, allow it to embody the past and be intrinsically connected to the present…”
To produce the series, Thompson describes how he meditated over the photographic images, allowing them to enter his subconscious. Rather than commenting on the archive, Thompson uses it as “a departure point into the contemporary.” For Thompson, the act of photographing himself with votive objects like flowers, crystals, butterflies and candles is a kind of contemporary ceremony. The exhibition thus becomes a meditative space transporting the archive into the realm of contemporary art.
Lamenting the Flowers, 2012 – Christian Thompson. C-type print on Fuji pearl metalic paper, 100 x100 cm. Edition of 10.
Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi
Source: exhibition media release.
Artwork © Christian Thompson 2012
About the artist:
Christian Thompson is currently pursuing a Doctorate of Philosophy in Fine Art at the University of Oxford. An inaugural recipient of the Charlie Perkins Scholarship, he is one of the first two Aboriginal students ever to study at the prestigious university. His work is held in numerous public and private collections in Australia, including the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and the National Gallery of Victoria. His work was recently exhibited at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and the Aboriginal Art Museum in Utrecht, the Netherlands. He was also featured in Culture Warriors, the National Indigenous Art Triennial (2007) and unDisclosed: 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial (2012). He is represented by Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi.