Taloi Havini, Habitat: Konawiru 2016, single channel video, sound, 3:43 mins, Courtesy of the Artist and Andrew Baker Art Dealer
MICHAEL COOK, Mother (16mm) 2016, single-channel digital video, sound, continuous loop, edition 10 Courtesy of the Artist and Andrew Baker Art Dealer
FIONA FOLEY Vexed 2013 single channel video, sound, 13:18 mins Courtesy of the Artist and Andrew Baker Art Dealer
ANGELA TIATIA, Tuvalu 2016, three channel video, sound, 20.32 mins, Courtesy the artist and Alcaston Gallery
The visually mesmerising new media works in IMPACT examine the ramifications of colonisation on Indigenous communities in Queensland and the Pacific region through the work of four acclaimed new media artists - Michael Cook, Taloi Havini, Angela Tiatia and Fiona Foley.
Michael Cook explores the untold consequences on members of the Stolen Generations, of the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their families from the 1870s until the 1970s. Cook creates a 1960s vignette in Mother, to convey a young Indigenous mother’s despair for her stolen baby.
Set in the distinctive landscape of central Australia, Fiona Foley’s film, Vexed, explores how the theft of Aboriginal women by white men destroyed traditional Aboriginal kinship marriages and shattered Indigenous peoples lives and culture.
Taloi Havini examines a devastated environment and the impact of social/political conflicts between the peoples of Bougainville and mining companies of Australia. The heavy machinery and rusted metal carcases stripped bare by locals, now barely exist beneath the wild elephant grass.
Angela Tiatia questions the effects of climate change on people’s lives, specifically in Tuvalu, in the South Pacific. Tuvalu is a small Pacific Island nation, which faces the threat of total evacuation as the result of rising sea levels.
Image: MICHAEL COOK Roller Skating (from Mother series), 2015 Hahnamühle Photo Rag with archival inks 80 x 120 cm edition of 8 Courtesy of the Artist and Andrew Baker Art Dealer