MFTWA

In Visible Ink is a Museum of Freedom and Tolerance endeavour that makes visible the invisible. Through sharing and amplifying stories, histories, art, conversations and projects that inspire people to see differently, it aims to make changes towards a more just world.

The Carrolup artworks were produced by Aboriginal children stolen from their families and detained at the Western Australian Carrolup Native Settlement in the 1940s. The power of their artworks to illuminate a dark history and help us understand the impact of intergenerational trauma is enormous.

We convened a conversation about how Curtin University is catalysing the artworks into a Centre that will become a focal point for understanding the history and consequences of dispossession.

Joining us for this important session are our excellent speakers (Bios below):

• Michelle Broun (Chair)
• Chris Malcolm
• Tony Hansen

Speaker bios:

Michelle Broun is a proud Yindjibarndi woman living and working on Whadjuk Nyoongar Boodja.  She grew up between the Pilbara and the Southwest-studying and working in Perth, Roebourne, Broome and Margaret River.  Michelle has worked at many levels and across many platforms to produce, promote and present Aboriginal arts and culture.  She is a curator, cultural planner and creative producer-engaging with community and collaborating with artists to create thought -provoking and moving experiences for audiences, to build bridges between cultures and find common ground on which to move forward.  She was the lead curator of the Ngalang Koort Boodja Wirn exhibition at the Museum of Western Australia which opened in 2020.  She is currently the Curator of Australian First Nations Art at John Curtin Gallery, focusing on the research, presentation and community engagement related to the collection of  artworks produced by the child inmates of the Carrolup Native Settlement.

Tony Hansen is an Aboriginal man with connections to the South-West Boojarah region, Wilman tribe, which is located in Wagyl Kaip and Southern Noongar region. After being forcibly removed from his family Tony was placed at the Marribank Mission, formally known as Carrolup Native Settlement, for 15 years. Many years later, Tony was able to reconnect with his family, and he now values the opportunity to be a voice of Stolen Generation survivors. Tony is now Chair of the Carrolup Elders Reference Group.

Chris Malcolm is the Director of John Curtin Gallery. He has worked with some of the most influential contemporary artists from around the world, curating and designing exhibitions over the last 25 years. Moving from a career as a practising artist represented in the collections of the Art Gallery of Western Australia and the City of Fremantle, he commenced working with Curtin University’s Art Collection in 1989.  He was involved in the development of the John Curtin Gallery which opened at Curtin University in 1998 as Australia’s largest University Art Museum and has been Director since 2009.

Malcolm has curated over 15 major international exhibitions for the Perth Festival and was a Founding Curator of the Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth – a major international festival project launched in 2002 showcasing innovative new media arts practise.  He has received the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in 2002 and 2019 and has developed many exhibitions in collaboration with leading researchers across a range of disciplines from nanotechnology to radio astronomy – including Shared Sky, which has been touring internationally since 2014. As Director, he has overseen the convergence of the John Curtin Gallery’s collection development with its exhibition programming to focus on issues of diversity, equity and social justice.

In Visible Ink is a Museum of Freedom and Tolerance endeavour that makes visible the invisible. Through sharing and amplifying stories, histories, art, conversations and projects that inspire people to see differently, it aims to make changes towards a more just world.

The Furnace is a Western Australian film that illuminates the forgotten history of Australia’s ‘Ghan’ cameleers, predominantly Muslim and Sikh men from India, Afghanistan and Persia, who opened up the Nation’s desert interior, and formed unique bonds with local Aboriginal people. It shines a light on a crucial yet little known chapter of Australia’s history, celebrating the cultural diversity of early pioneers.

We convened a screening of The Furnace and a following conversation about the importance of shining a light and giving visibility to the multiple and diverse histories of the Australian landscape.

This discussion includes our incredible speakers (bios below):

• Affy Bhatti (Chair)
• Roderick MacKay
• Harjit Singh 
• Rosie Sitorous 
• Gary Bonney
• and features a short clip with the voice of Godfrey Simpson 

Speaker biographies:

Affy Bhatti (Chair) is a British Pakistani man in Australia. He is Director of The Crescent Institute, Co-Founder of the Muslim Professional Network Perth, and a Management Consultant. Affy was a key supporter of The Furnace and assisted production with consultation within the Australian Muslim community.

Roderick MacKay is a writer/director from Perth, Western Australia. With a formal training in visual arts, Roderick is a highly visual storyteller. In 2020, Roderick's debut feature film, The Furnace, premiered as part of the official selection for the 77th Venice Film Festival. Roderick's short films include Trigger and Factory 293.

Rosie Sitorous is an emerging writer based in Western Australia. She has an established creative practice in spoken word performance, music and comedy, and works as a linguist with rural, regional and remote Aboriginal communities. Much of Rosie’s writing reflects on her relationship with her late mother, a great influence on her love of language, as well as her search, as a ‘third culture kid’, for place and belonging in contemporary Australia. Rosie consulted for The Furnace on the Badimia language along with Godfrey Simpson.

Gary Bonney is an educator and storyteller and has undertaken a number of roles in regional and remote areas of Western Australia. Gary’s experience has included work in secondary education, with at risk youth, young people in residential settings and with Indigenous people in the Goldfields and Kimberley regions of Western Australia. Gary has a passion for working in community with marginalised people, and educating others to increase awareness, access, social equity and understanding. Gary is an early career screenwriter and works with Revelation Film Festival and was Associate Producer for The Furnace.

Harjit Singh is one of the founders of the Australian Sikh Heritage Association which documents and shares history on the early contribution of Sikhs in Australia. Harjit is also one of the founders of Turbans and Trust, which has generated over 10,000 one on one conversations between strangers to build an understanding of respect and equality. Harjit’s passion for civil rights has driven him to work on close to a hundred civil rights matters across Australia, building understanding without confrontation wherever possible. Harjit wants the turban to be recognised as being just as Australian as the Akubra! Harjit worked as the primary Sikh Consultant on The Furnace.

In Visible Ink is a Museum of Freedom and Tolerance endeavour that makes visible the invisible. Through sharing and amplifying stories, histories, art, conversations and projects that inspire people to see differently, it aims to make changes towards a more just world.

The BLM movement transformed global consciousness in 2020, bringing questions relating to the stories we make visible in our civic and popular culture to the fore as statues and monuments around the world tumbled.

In solidarity with the protests, the names of some of the hundreds of Indigenous people who have died in custody were projected on a landmark sculpture in Walyalup (Fremantle) during 2020, bringing into focus place, visibility, history and the resonance of the BLM movement in Western Australia, the state with the largest number of Indigenous deaths in custody.

To launch our 2021 In Visible Ink Symposium, we convened conversations around the themes of deconstruction and reconstruction of visual and civic culture.

This powerful opening conversation led by Aboriginal women and women of colour, featured a line up of amazing speakers (see bios below):

• Chaired by Sisonke Msimang
• Dr Hannah McGlade
• Professor Suvendrini Perera
• Professor Anna Arabindan Kesson
• Shaheen Hughes

Join the Museum of Freedom and Tolerance and special guests on a multi-sensory journey as we provoke our audience to question the visibility of dominant civic and cultural landscapes and landmarks, learn how to see differently, and actively seek a fairer and more just approach to systemic racism, discrimination, incarceration and inequality.

Speaker biographies:

Sisonke Msimang is the author of Always Another Country: A memoir of exile and home and The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela. She is a South African writer whose work is focussed on race, gender and democracy. She has written for a range of major international news publications and has held fellowships at Yale University, the Aspen Institute and the Bellagio Centre. She is currently a fellow at the WISER Institute, at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Shaheen Hughes is CEO of The Museum of Freedom and Tolerance. Shaheen has a background in international, national and state policy and advocacy, a master’s degree in International Communications and an honours in Art History and English Literature. Shaheen is a tireless advocate of the arts, passionate about creating diverse and inclusive environments and social justice solutions and committed to fighting hate and intolerance.

Suvendrini Perera is a Curtin Distinguished Professor and Research Professor of Cultural Studies in the School of Media, Culture & Creative Arts. She has published widely on issues of social justice, including decolonisation, race, ethnicity and multiculturalism, refugee topics, critical whiteness studies and Asian-Australian studies. Suvendi has combined her academic career with participation in policymaking, public life and activism.

Hannah McGlade is an Indigenous human rights lawyer, Associate Professor at Curtin Law School, and member of the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues. Her book Our Greatest Challenge, Aboriginal children and human rights received the 2011 Stanner Award. Hannah has been at the forefront of the development of key organisations in Perth and WA, in relation to Aboriginal women legal supports, Noongar radio and Stolen Generations and healing.

Anna Kesson is an immigrant art historian, writer and curator. She is Assistant Professor of Black Diasporic Art with a joint appointment in the Depts of African American Studies and Art and Archaeology at Princeton. Her first book is Black Bodies, White Gold: Art, Cotton & Commerce in the Atlantic World.