Exhibits,
Moorina Bonini A Tribute to the Concrete Box (For Aunty Hyllus)
Opening: March 2020 Dates: 10 March - 8 August, 2020
‘When will the time come for all Kooris to have their freedom, peace of mind and their health?’
— Hyllus Maris
Please join us for the opening of, ‘A Tribute to the Concrete Box (For Aunty Hyllus)’, a new body of work presented by Moorina Bonini, which explores the repositioning of narratives placed around Indigenous people in Australia. The origins of these works are influenced by Moorina’s Great Aunt, Hyllus Maris, and her metaphor ‘The Concrete Box’.
Utilising Aboriginal cultural practices, sculpture, and video, Moorina will interrogate institutional space through the physical action of deconstruction. This will occur within the gallery through the dismantling of a white cube. Traditional tools will be used to break through the white walls, in an aim to create an opportunity for community to reclaim power and authority over their histories, their artworks and over the exhibition space itself. Once peering inside a red core is revealed, a light will shine out, encouraging a re-imagining of institutional space for Indigenous people. Speaking past structures that have historically erased Indigenous people, Moorina will instead highlight and re-centre Indigenous knowledge systems.
Catalogue essay ‘We move in with caution’,
by Timmah Ball.
Reading list.
Artist text.
Moorina Bonini is a proud descendant of the Yorta Yorta Dhulunyagen family clan of Ulupna and the Yorta Yorta and Woiwurrung Briggs/McCrae family. Moorina is an artist whose works are informed by her experiences as an Aboriginal and Italian woman. Her practice is driven by a self-reflexive methodology that enables the reexamination of lived experiences that have influenced the construction of her cultural identity. By unsettling the narrative placed upon Aboriginal people as a result of colonisation of Aboriginal Australia, Bonini’s practice is based within Indigenous knowledge systems and brings this to the fore.
Moorina holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from RMIT University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from the Victorian College of the Arts. Her work has been exhibited in various galleries such as Ballarat International Foto Biennale, Sydney Festival, Blak Dot Gallery, c3 Contemporary Art Space, Centre for Contemporary Photography, KINGS, SEVENTH Gallery, Koorie Heritage Trust and Brunswick Street Gallery. Moorina has produced and co-curated art and cultural programs across RMIT University and the University of Melbourne. Moorina is currently working at Next Wave as a Producer-in-Residence. She is a board member of SEVENTH Gallery, where she is currently the First Nations Programming Coordinator.
