Angela Kilford – PERFORMING MOBILITIES http://performingmobilities.mickdouglas.net Tue, 05 Jul 2016 11:14:05 +0000 en-AU hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.7.2 http://performingmobilities.mickdouglas.net/wp-content/uploads/webFiles/cropped-PM_ico_02-32x32.jpg Angela Kilford – PERFORMING MOBILITIES http://performingmobilities.mickdouglas.net 32 32 WALK ON FALLOW LANDS #2 http://performingmobilities.mickdouglas.net/symposium/passages_mobile/walk-on-fallow-lands-2/ Fri, 24 Jul 2015 01:34:15 +0000 http://2015.performingmobilities.net/?post_type=passages_mobile&p=1044 Walk on Fallow Lands #2 is a performance work that invites people to walk the land – and engage with the heavy and multiple narratives of colonisation – thereby excavating the multiple histories in the landscape. The act of walking, as ritual and guiding, brings forth oral histories and a valuing of land. The work simultaneously proposes an engagement with two indigenous worldviews. With reference to her homeland, Aotearoa/New Zealand, the artist traces her Maori temporality and whakapapa (geneaology) back to Papatuanuku the Earth Mother and Ranginui the Sky Father, which is fundamental to the way in which Maori value land. Equally, for Aboriginal Australia, many people consider the land as ‘Mother, for she gives birth to us and nurtures us through our life’.

Aboriginal and Maori people have expressed and shared these ideas through oral history and language, which have been threatened (and sometimes eliminated) by colonial structures, identities and formations. Walk on Fallow Lands #2 thereby draws on a Maori view of history that requires an understanding of whakapapa in affirming identity. The saying ‘I nga wa o mua’ alludes to the past being something that lies in front of you, rather than something you leave behind, and illustrates a cyclical view of history as each person is added to whakapapa, and the story moves forward, bringing the past with it.

In honouring the memories and myths of significance to the first peoples of Australia, and presenting these through a Maori lens, the artists seeks to disrupt Western narratives of place by removing dominant hierarchies. ‘Just as when I am walking, my feet are the waka and I carry the embodied knowledge within me.’

This walk is being conducted with blessings from the Wurundjeri Tribe Land and Cultural Heritage Council. With the support of Creative New Zealand.

]]> Walk on Fallow Lands #2 is a performance work that invites people to walk the land – and engage with the heavy and multiple narratives of colonisation – thereby excavating the multiple histories in the landscape. The act of walking, as ritual and guiding, brings forth oral histories and a valuing of land. The work simultaneously proposes an engagement with two indigenous worldviews. With reference to her homeland, Aotearoa/New Zealand, the artist traces her Maori temporality and whakapapa (geneaology) back to Papatuanuku the Earth Mother and Ranginui the Sky Father, which is fundamental to the way in which Maori value land. Equally, for Aboriginal Australia, many people consider the land as ‘Mother, for she gives birth to us and nurtures us through our life’.

Aboriginal and Maori people have expressed and shared these ideas through oral history and language, which have been threatened (and sometimes eliminated) by colonial structures, identities and formations. Walk on Fallow Lands #2 thereby draws on a Maori view of history that requires an understanding of whakapapa in affirming identity. The saying ‘I nga wa o mua’ alludes to the past being something that lies in front of you, rather than something you leave behind, and illustrates a cyclical view of history as each person is added to whakapapa, and the story moves forward, bringing the past with it.

In honouring the memories and myths of significance to the first peoples of Australia, and presenting these through a Maori lens, the artists seeks to disrupt Western narratives of place by removing dominant hierarchies. ‘Just as when I am walking, my feet are the waka and I carry the embodied knowledge within me.’

This walk is being conducted with blessings from the Wurundjeri Tribe Land and Cultural Heritage Council. With the support of Creative New Zealand.

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