Vernon Ah Kee’s The Island: "Someone’s Got to Deal With That Fire – MutualArt.com

MutualArt spoke to Vernon Ah Kee as his exhibition Vernon Ah Kee: The Island opened at Campbelltown Arts Centre in Australia.

Vernon Ah Kee, survive the ocean, 2018, Installation view, Vernon Ah Kee The Island, Campbelltown Arts Centre, 2020, Gloss red vinyl 340cm x 200cm. Photo: Document Photograph

Vernon Ah Kee: The Island, opened at Campbelltown Art Centre on January 2, as Australia was (and still is) burning from over 10.7 million hectares of unprecedented bushfires. Globally, and at home, the consensus accepts the link between the scale of fires and human-made climate change. However, inaction from the government to target the unfolding ecological crisis reverberates throughout other divisions of Australian attitudes. One of the most frustrating aspects of the bush fires is the decision to ignore the traditional custodians practice of land management.

The way the government treats Aboriginal knowledge is underpinned, for Vernon Ah Kee, by the denial circuiting around the extremely racist context of Australia. In a conversation with the artist about his exhibition, Ah Kee likens the denial to a fire burning behind your back, but adds, you can turn your back on it, but someone's got to deal with that fire. Ah Kee cannot shy away from these attitudes, and in turn creates art that is jarring, confronting, and causes discomfort, because for himself, and many others in Australia, this is what they face every day.

(Left work) Vernon Ah Kee, Belief Suspension, 2007-2009 Installation view, Vernon Ah Kee The Island, Campbelltown Arts Centre, 2020 Single channel digital video, colour, stereo sound 04:47 minutes, Director and Editor Suzanne Howard, Sound David M Thomas Regards David M Thomas (Right work) Vernon Ah Kee, cantchant (series), 2009, Installation view, Vernon Ah Kee The Island, Campbelltown Arts Centre, 2020 Digital Print 120cm x 70cm each Photo: Document Photography

Vernon Ah Kee: The Island is the second exhibition Ah Kee has presented with Sydney Festival, the first being at the National Art School two years ago that presented his drawing works. In 2020, this exhibition returns to text-based works alongside installations that are all enhanced by the video works they left out of the first exhibition. The artist has known Sydney Festival Director, Wesley Enoch, since the early 90s in Brisbane; "when we were both just young blackfellas in Brisbane just starting out, he shares. Because we've known each other for so long I think there's a comfort there between us, a shorthand.

The artist has worked collectively throughout his career, which spans over two decades. He was one of the founding members of the proppaNOW collective, a Brisbane art collective that focused on urban Aboriginal art. Working in this way has helped shape the art industry in Australia as we know it, tackling confronting issues through the medium of contemporary art. As Ah Kee shares, "in the work that we make... it's okay to say these things, or it's okay if you don't want to say these things, if it's too hard for you we understand why it's too hard.

Vernon Ah Kee: The Island reflects this mentality in the largest survey of Ah Kee's video works. Campbelltown Arts Centre's walls have been painted black and black carpet fitted in a conducive space for the light and sound of the video, transforming the gallery into a black box, reverberating an intimate atmosphere. The exhibition features a mix of existing works and new commissions, such as Lullaby (2019) and, title work, The Island (2018). As well as older works like tall man (2010), which follows the Palm Island Riots, and Belief Suspension (2007-2009), which hones in of surfing culture in Australia.

Vernon Ah Kee, The Island, 2018, Installation view, Vernon Ah Kee The Island, Campbelltown Arts Centre, 2020, Three channel digital video, colour, stereo sound, 10:16 minutes, Commissioned by Griffith University Art Museum, 2018. Photo: Document Photograph

The Island is a three-channel work that reflects the brutality within the immigration system, drawing parallels between the treatment of Aboriginal people. I think things have gotten worse, Ah Kee shares on reflection of racism. The progression in Australia's immigration policy [has shifted] towards brutality, he continues, what we've seen are endless racist platforms [within] politicians campaigns. In the artwork, the artist recounted the experience of an Afghani couples journey to Australia; their subsequent treatment [after] fleeing quite dire circumstances from there in their homeland.

The artist's familiar motif of text feeds into the new exhibition, and for The Island, due to legal advice, they couldn't share the faces of the couple and instead used visual elements to tell their journey. The video work also lights up the text piece opposite the installation, creating a personal and touching retelling of the experience that is unique to the viewer. I've always been interested in font, and the way alphabets are designed, Ah Kee explains. [I realised] the way advertising uses fonts and text and that words have a weight and power to them.

Vernon Ah Kee, kick the dust, 2019, Installation view, Vernon Ah Kee The Island, Campbelltown Arts Centre, 2020, Rocks, acrylic riot shield fragments. Photo: Document Photograph

Text and language also play in Lullaby, the new commission by Campbelltown Arts Centre. I wanted to make something to commemorate 2019 being the year of indigenous languages, Ah Kee shares. Visually, it's simple, it's a mother playing with her child, and it's called Lullaby because she sings a lullaby to put [her son] to sleep. The artist decided to have the entire video in Farsi, the Iranian mothers language, and so for the none-Farsi speaking audience, the artwork becomes about the different types of communication that we employ. From the way we breathe, the tone we use, the vocalization, the pronunciation of certain words all these are informed by cultural background.

Ah Kee decided to use Farsi as he believes, it is probably the most loaded language in this country right now because of Australia's immigration policies and racism against the Muslim community. The treatment of refugees in Australia pulls on familiar strings for the artist when he began to draw on the parallels between the judgement and confinement in detention centers to the 1920s and 30s in Queensland, in places like Palm Island where the artists mother is from. For me, it's fairly obvious the parallel between Manus and Nauru and Palm Island, being island communities and places of hopeless confinement, Ah Kee continues. Plus, the cruel processing systems that they have in place.

Vernon Ah Kee, scratch the surface (riot shields), 2019, Installation view, Vernon Ah KeeThe Island, Campbelltown Arts Centre, 2020, Acrylic riot shields, charcoal, Dimensions vary. Photo: Document Photography

All of this comes together when the Kuku Yalandji, Waanji, Yidindji, Koko Berrin and Gugu Yimithirr artist reflects on his status in Australia. He was born in far north Queensland just before the 1967 referendum that allowed the Australian public to vote whether to include Aborigines as citizens of Australia. When I was born, I wasn't a citizen in any way as an Aborigine, Ah Kee shares. Blackfellas could be citizens, but you had to promise to be a white man, and by promising to be a white man, that meant not associating with Aborigines. Because of this, the artist believes that Aboriginal people should be speaking to and for refugees, we should be the chief advocates for refugees because we know what we're talking about.

In the artwork born in this skin, Ah Kee is displaying the historic Yuendumu Doors which feature traditional ochre ground painting, reflective of the Warlpiri peoples Dreaming symbols that rarely leave the South Australian Museum. In the installations, juxtaposing the beautiful hand-painted doors are another series of (now infamous) doors taken from Cockatoo Island on Sydney's harbor, from the dockworkers' toilets which are vulgar with racist slurs graffiti across them. However, hanging over the exhibition is the violence that continues today as the recent death of Yuendumu resident, 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker, in November 2019 at the hands of a police officer adds another layer of sensitivity to the Yuendumu doors. (In a rare event, the police officer has actually been charged with murder). As Ah Kee muses, "it's so easy to shine a light on things that it's almost too arbitrary, but you have to do it because that denial overrides everything over and over and over again.

Vernon Ah Kee: The IslandJanuary 2 - February 23, 2020Campbelltown Arts Centre

Following Campbelltown Arts Centre, Vernon Ah Kee: The Island will be touring around NSW by Museum and Galleries NSW.

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Vernon Ah Kee's The Island: "Someone's Got to Deal With That Fire - MutualArt.com