Rural Utopias Residency: Alana Hunt in Kununurra #2
Alana Hunt is currently working with the community of Kununurra. This residency forms part of one of Spaced’s current programs, Rural Utopias.
Alana Hunt is an artist and writer who lives on Miriwoong country in the north-west of Australia. This and her long-standing relationship with South Asia—and with Kashmir in particular—shapes her engagement with the violence that results from the fragility of nations and the aspirations and failures of colonial dreams.
Here, Alana shares an update from Kununurra.
Over the last year, I have been slipping in and out of the Kimberley Land Council’s offices in Kununurra as an “artist in residence”; a kind of professional placement entirely new, and mostly unknown, for the organisation.
Working from these offices in discreet everyday kind of ways—building relationships gradually, talking casually, researching quietly—are all vital parts of the work-of-art.
Intuitively, artistically, ethically—I’ve tried to avoid the convention of “artist delivers workshop to community/artist photographs themselves engaging with community”. Instead, opting for something more subtle, more relationally embedded.
There are no photos of this process; no evidence of engagement, so to speak. Ideas percolate through conversations that take place while making tea in the staff kitchen. Relationships become a little stronger on the steps of a building while waiting for the front door to open. Information is transmitted across email. Questions asked. Questions answered. Further investigations formed.
Laminated maps, odd chairs and loose electrical equipment fill the conference room I work from. And there is a very loved family of cat-caretakers that inhabit the premises.
But enough description, there is work at hand. Specifically, the need to reckon with Section 18 of the WA Aboriginal Heritage Act—legislation which gives legal permission to “destroy, damage or alter” an Aboriginal site via a pdf form. This is the legislation that approved Rio Tinto’s destruction of Juukan Gorge; in search of iron ore Rio Tinto blew up a cave that showed 46,000 years of continual occupation on the Country of the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura peoples.
There was public outrage at what took place at Juukan Gorge, but it was not an aberration. Rather it is the status quo. Since the legislation was introduced in 1972, thousands of applications have been approved, and only three EVER declined. Our society produces laws that claim to protect Aboriginal Heritage with one hand, while opening a pathway for its destruction with another. Colonisation here is not historic, but something very present.
Among various elements of research and making, I have been producing a video that compiles the summaries of every Section 18 application submitted between 2010-20—all information publicly available on the WA government’s website. I have shared this work as it has been evolving at a number of more casual and formal discussions—in the shade of the back veranda of the offices in Kununurra, in the KLC’s Broome conference room, and at an exhibition in Broome with artist Anna John. Across all of these contexts I spoke extensively about everything the work is, and is trying to do. Conversing, another vital element of the work-of-art.
One of my motivations to make this work, has really been to make some of the less obvious forms of violence and injustice perpetrated by non-Indigenous culture in Australia more legible to non-Indigenous people. In a sense, I am trying to paint a picture of colonisation in the here and now, so that colonists, like myself, can begin to see ourselves with a little more clarity. So, for me, one of the most surprising responses to the work I’ve shared this far, came from Tyrone Garstone and Antony Watson, CEO and Chairman of the KLC respectively; they saw immediate value in this work being shared amongst Aboriginal people in the Kimberley and in WA more broadly. But importantly, Antony pointed out, the video, being so text-oriented, would be inaccessible to people in the Kimberley who cannot read, or read with ease. This sent me on a chase for a narrator! I’ve been searching for someone who has been involved with the completion or assessment of a Section 18 application. I have been in correspondence with a number of people, over the last couple of months. And have only recently found someone perfect for the role, and has also agreed to take part. We hope to record before the year is over.
Below is our most recent correspondence, which may shed a little more light on what I am doing:
Dear XXX,
The project descriptions are indeed from all over Western Australia. I guess this is not a very conventional video, but something more conceptual. Let me try to explain the work and my motivations a little more.
In chronological order, the video lists every project summary from every Section 18 form submitted between 2010-2020; that is 967 in total. The text has been taken directly, unedited, from the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Committee Ministerial decisions publicly dating back to 2010 on the government's website. (If I had the material dating back to 1972 when the legislation was introduced, I would love to include that also. But for now I am working with what is publicly available.) The font and colour of the video, has also been chosen to correspond with the font and colour of the pdfs from which the material has been sourced.
I am doing this for a number of reasons. First, perhaps I am naive, but I find it astounding that there is a pdf you can fill out in order to receive permission (or legal immunity) to "destroy, damage and alter" an Aboriginal site. Further, since the legislation was introduced in 1972 only three applications have ever been declined; what a striking illustration of power.
So, in a nutshell, this is a legislation purportedly established to protect "Aboriginal Heritage" which actually provides a pathway for its legal destruction. There is a deep, and quite dark, irony here—one that points to some very core traits of Australia, as a nation.
Through my art, I am interested in making some of the lesser recognised aspects of non-Indigenous culture in contemporary Australia more visible. In this case, I am examining the violence we enact through such bureaucracies.
Juukan Gorge received widespread public outcry. Of course, that was an important response. But I think as a society we also missed how common what took place at Juukan Gorge really is. The project summaries in this video, are not only about large mines and big explosions, but also, and perhaps most interestingly to me, they are about footpaths, housing developments, yacht clubs, churches, and even cultural centres...accumulatively, the list paints quite a telling picture of colonisation. Prompting us to reckon, not simply with "mining", but with the material impact of our daily lives on Aboriginal land.
More broadly I want to examine the forms of language employed in these bureaucratic processes. And the performative dynamics of consultation, and lack thereof, that underpin so much of this.
Here we begin to open some very interesting questions; How and who draws the line around where a "site" begins and ends, and what about the connections that run between them? If, for instance, there is deemed to be no "Aboriginal site" why do we need legal protection from causing damage or destruction? But how could there possibly be no site, if we recognise that all of Australia is Aboriginal land, in the sense evoked by Palyku writer Ambelin Kwaymullina:
There is no part of this place
that was not
is not
cared for
loved
by an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander nation
There are no trees
rivers
hills
stars
that were not
are not
someone's kin
I had initially made this video, with a non-Indigenous audience clearly in mind. But when I showed some early drafts to Aboriginal people in the Kimberley, they said it was very powerful and important information, but inaccessible to those in their communities who could not read. This is what brought me to the idea of a voice over. I decided the narrator needed to be someone who had been involved in completing or processing a Section 18 form.
You came to mind, as someone who had been outspoken about what took place at XXXXXX XXXXX and your role in that process with XXX XXXXX, but also had an understanding of contemporary art through your involvement with XXXX and XXXXXXX XXXXXXX.
I am envisioning the narration as a kind of endurance in itself. Reading for 2hrs41mins without pause will not be easy. It could also become a little emotional considering the nature of the content. And there will, no doubt be moments where errors will be made — but I think this will all make for a more compelling audio track.
I really do hope you agree to take part in the work. Please let me know if you have any further questions.
Warmest,
Alana
