Gomeroi/Gamilaraay Murri Yinnah photographer and photojournalist Barbara McGrady has been witnessing, documenting and capturing Country and community for five decades. At the heart of her photography is a celebration of Blak beauty and strength, and a desire to tell stories. Ngiyaningy Maran Yaliwaunga Ngaara-li (Our Ancestors Are Always Watching) is an immersive photographic installation that encompasses its audience into McGrady’s world.
“As a Gomeroi yinnar photographer, it has always been my responsibility to bring our stories into the public domain, to connect and engage audiences with images through a black lens,” says McGrady. “For most of my life, I have documented the diversity of Aboriginal experiences: politics, sport, dance, song, community, family. Ngiyaningy Maran Yaliwaunga Ngaara-li (Our Ancestors Are Always Watching) shifts my work into a new phase. It is an opportunity to delve into my archive, to curate my lifetime’s work and re-present it as a kaleidoscopic compendium of Aboriginal contemporary history within a gallery setting. It is an immersive, multichannel audio-visual black takeover of the white cube: a ‘Blackout’. Ngiyaningy Maran Yaliwaunga Ngaara-li provides an insight into what it means to be a First Nations person surviving and thriving in a colonial world.”
View, in pictures, Barbara McGrady’s Blackout.
Barbara McGrady, Steve Williams, Wiradjuri (passed 2018), Smoking Ceremony, Black ANZACS, 2015, digital pigment on phototex, 2400 x 3600 mm.
Barbara McGrady, Kulgoodah Dancers, DanceRites, 2019, digital pigment on phototex, 1000 x 1500 mm. Courtesy the artist. Copyright Barbara McGrady.
Barbara McGrady, Black Lives Matter, Martin Place, 2015, digital pigment on cotton rag, 680 x 1200 mm. Collection of the Australian Museum. Courtesy the artist. Copyright Barbara McGrady
Barbara McGrady, Kicking Up Dust, 2017, digital pigment on phototex, 1000 x 1500 mm. Courtesy the artist. Copyright Barbara McGrady.
Barbara McGrady, Black Lives Matter, Martin Place, 2015, digital pigment on cotton rag, 680 x 1200 mm. Collection of the Australian Museum. Courtesy the artist. Copyright Barbara McGrady.
Barbara McGrady, Mungindi V Cabbage Tree Island, Koori Knockout, Dubbo, New South Wales, 1 October 2015, 2015, digital pigment on cotton rag, 500 x 700 mm. Collection of the State Library of NSW. Copyright Barbara McGrady.
Barbara McGrady, WAC (Walgett Aboriginal Connection) & Griffith 3 Ways, Koori Knockout, Dubbo, New South Wales, 1 October 2015, 2015, digital pigment on cotton rag, 500 x 700 mm. Collection of the State Library of NSW. Copyright Barbara McGrady.
Barbara McGrady, The Black Superman, 2014, digital pigment on cotton rag, 680 x 1200 mm. Collection of the Australian Museum. Courtesy the artist. Copyright Barbara McGrady
Ngiyaningy Maran Yaliwaunga Ngaara-li (Our Ancestors Are Always Watching)
Barbara McGrady
Campbelltown Arts Centre
6 July—13 October
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