Arts Monday 18 July 2011

Robert Campbell Jnr, Charlie Perkins, 1986, University of Sydney Union collection. © the artist’s estate, courtesy the artist’s estate and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney. Photograph: © Michael Myers 2010.

ArtiFacts, Eastside.

Join me, Jane Raffan, for a program devoted to civil rights.

I’ll be interviewing Matt Poll, the curator of ‘Freedom Riders: Art and activism 1960s to now’, which is the new exhibition at the University Art Gallery, Sydney University.

Inspired by the ‘freedom rides’ into the segregated southern states of the USA in the 1960s, the 1965 Australian Freedom Ride took a busload of Sydney University students into regional NSW to expose Australia’s treatment of Aboriginal people.

The Australian Freedom Ride was an important part of the broader movement for civil rights and helped create momentum for changes to Australia’s policies regarding Indigenous Australians and Indigenous rights, including the landmark 1967 referendum.

In December this year the Australian Government will be presented with a report by an Expert Panel outlining options for constitutional recognition of our first peoples. Proposed changes to the constitution will be subject to a national referendum. In-depth information on the process, including the opportunity to have your say, can be found here:

http://www.humanrights.gov.au/constitution/index.html

http://www.youmeunity.org.au/

The Australian Freedom Ride was led by Charles Perkins, who was the first Aboriginal graduate at Sydney University. In the University’s Freedom Riders exhibition, the background of the Ride and a portrait of Charlie Perkins by Aboriginal artist Robert Campbell Jnr (depicted) provide the framework for a dialogue between six Aboriginal artists who work in vastly different styles and media: Karla Dickens, Adam Hill, Jonathan Jones, Michael Riley, Elaine Russell and Christian Thompson.

Additional media on the Freedom Ride: http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/a-bus-journey-to-fight-racial-discrimination.htm

Rights activism timeline illustrated with a work from the show: http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/how-aboriginal-activism-brought-change.htm

The program’s music – vocal and jazz instrumental – will be drawn from the wealth of material produced during the American civil rights movement, and more recently, Aboriginal Australia’s songs of freedom from ‘Murundak’. http://www.madman.com.au/catalogue/view/14958/murundak-songs-of-freedom

I look forward to continuing my Eastside journeys with you.

Jane

www.ArtiFacts.net.au