cyberTribe online gallery is marking the 15th anniversary of exhibitions and events this year. cyberTribe is an unfunded online gallery focused on nurturing digital and experimental art, and has been at the forefront of exhibiting cutting edge and politically important artworks and first hand statements from Indigenous Artists internationally, both online and in other gallery spaces across the world. Over the years, cyberTribe has brought together Indigenous and other artists from places across Australasia, the Pacific, the Americas and elsewhere to participate in exhibitions of international standing.
English computer artist and academic Paul Brown invited me to work on Fineartforum.org, which was an online magazine adopted from a university in America by QUT. Importantly, it was an international publication running out of Brisbane, not only because being online, it could be accessed internationally, but also because a lot of the students and academics working in different roles, were from all over the world, like the United Kingdom, Ukraine and many Asian countries. It was enjoyable and fulfilling, there was a distinct feeling of working on something that was innovative, had a big picture approach and reach, and a continuous publishing program. I had already been curating online exhibitions, including a large group exhibition for the 1999 INSEA world congress in Brisbane, which was run by the International Society for Educators of Art. Armed with a bit of experience, and the invitation to curate for Fineartforum.org, it was then up to me to to think about how to present an Indigenous art online for our country.
cyberTribe has filled a space, as unfortunately there are few Aboriginal Curators in Australia and even fewer that have an interest in showing screen-based, experimental or conceptual artworks. Even though there has never been annual or triennial funding provided, cyberTribe has presented over 50 exhibitions and events, both with a focus as an online gallery, and also making use of opportunities in other spaces and places for Indigenous practitioners locally and Internationally. As an Indigenous presence in the world of Indigenous Arts I aim to provide new perspectives for audiences and perhaps encourage more inclusion of Indigenous Art (and practitioners) in other mainstream exhibitions and events – in areas where this is often overlooked.
The practice of curating is historically important and as there is no national Aboriginal Keeping Place in Australia, it is therefore mostly left up to us as custodians, to document works, so the cyberTribe space is part-archive, part-gallery, part-museum, part-publisher. Even though it could be essentially viewed as “just a website”, cyberTribe continues to be taken seriously and has achieved such milestones as: touring internationally, inclusion in the Biennale of Sydney online venue, and winning the 2009 Indigenous Keeping Place Award in the Radio National Regional Museums Awards.
As a new digital strategy this year, a new online TV channel has been created for 24/7 broadcasting and access internationally, with Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander screen culture at the centre. Titled worldscreenculture.tv it is a new home grown initiative to strategically branch out in a new direction. With a particular focus on the promotion and development of screen culture, this will be a place to access documentation and archives from screenings and events, such as video and photos from the recent Fringe Dwellers commemorative screening and BLAK RELEASE held in Cairns (Far North Queensland), which is usually a place left off the screen culture map.
This year cyberTribe has worked in partnership to present the CIAF presents satellite event titled BLAK RELEASE, a new screen festival put together by new Cairns Indigenous Art Fair Director Janina Harding, to showcase and celebrate the Indigenous screen culture of Queenslands First People. Held in Cairns on August 2nd, BLAK RELEASE engaged and showcased screen makers from Far North Queensland alongside other Indigenous interdisciplinary practitioners from around the state and beyond, representing art forms such as animation, performance art, documentary, short film, music videos and digital storytelling.
The inaugural BLAK RELEASE screening event had a spotlight on Indigenous Producing and Torres Strait Islander film maker John Harvey was in attendance for a conversation to kick off the screening, which included five of Harveys works, with three of those being recent premieres at the 2015 Sydney Film Festival, and Melbourne International Film Festival. John studied Producing and Screening Writing at the Australian Film Television & Radio School and was the recipient of the AV Myer Award for Exceptional Indigenous Talent at the School.
Music videos were another area of focus for the BLAK RELEASE screening program which included works by standout Far North Queensland talents. Three works from the BLAK RELEASE program were also selected as finalists in the 2015 National Indigenous Music Awards in The Northern Territory. The overall winner of the Community Award was The Cairns Murri Crew, announced at the 2015 NIMA awards ceremony held in Darwin. Acknowledging the significant and critical role that music plays in spreading positive messages throughout Indigenous communities, the NIMAs Community Clip of the Year Award acknowledges the work happening across remote communities. The Cairns Murri Crew is made up of Murri students from Cairns High School. Their song Built To Last is a celebration of cultural survival, of building respectful, inclusive and vibrant futures for young people whilst acknowledging the struggle and fight for basic human rights that continues today.
Far North Queensland has a great depth of Indigenous arts practice, with a growing visual arts industry, and for BLAK RELEASE and also cyberTribes SOLID SCREEN Festival in 2014 and 16 September 2015, our intention has been to compliment this strength and provide opportunities and experiences for local and visiting CIAF audiences and Indigenous practitioners to engage with other mediums for expression, and also explore and document screen culture history in Film making and the other screen arts. In the Far North there are a number of number of Indigenous screen-makers already with long histories of working in a variety of screen mediums, who need more acknowledgement and showcasing events, which is long overdue.
Jenny Fraser
https://about.me/jennyfraser
links:
cyberTribe on facebook https://www.facebook.com/cyberTribegallery
www.cyberTribe.culture2.org
www.worldscreenculture.tv
http://blackout.net.au
English computer artist and academic Paul Brown invited me to work on Fineartforum.org, which was an online magazine adopted from a university in America by QUT. Importantly, it was an international publication running out of Brisbane, not only because being online, it could be accessed internationally, but also because a lot of the students and academics working in different roles, were from all over the world, like the United Kingdom, Ukraine and many Asian countries. It was enjoyable and fulfilling, there was a distinct feeling of working on something that was innovative, had a big picture approach and reach, and a continuous publishing program. I had already been curating online exhibitions, including a large group exhibition for the 1999 INSEA world congress in Brisbane, which was run by the International Society for Educators of Art. Armed with a bit of experience, and the invitation to curate for Fineartforum.org, it was then up to me to to think about how to present an Indigenous art online for our country.
cyberTribe has filled a space, as unfortunately there are few Aboriginal Curators in Australia and even fewer that have an interest in showing screen-based, experimental or conceptual artworks. Even though there has never been annual or triennial funding provided, cyberTribe has presented over 50 exhibitions and events, both with a focus as an online gallery, and also making use of opportunities in other spaces and places for Indigenous practitioners locally and Internationally. As an Indigenous presence in the world of Indigenous Arts I aim to provide new perspectives for audiences and perhaps encourage more inclusion of Indigenous Art (and practitioners) in other mainstream exhibitions and events – in areas where this is often overlooked.
The practice of curating is historically important and as there is no national Aboriginal Keeping Place in Australia, it is therefore mostly left up to us as custodians, to document works, so the cyberTribe space is part-archive, part-gallery, part-museum, part-publisher. Even though it could be essentially viewed as “just a website”, cyberTribe continues to be taken seriously and has achieved such milestones as: touring internationally, inclusion in the Biennale of Sydney online venue, and winning the 2009 Indigenous Keeping Place Award in the Radio National Regional Museums Awards.
As a new digital strategy this year, a new online TV channel has been created for 24/7 broadcasting and access internationally, with Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander screen culture at the centre. Titled worldscreenculture.tv it is a new home grown initiative to strategically branch out in a new direction. With a particular focus on the promotion and development of screen culture, this will be a place to access documentation and archives from screenings and events, such as video and photos from the recent Fringe Dwellers commemorative screening and BLAK RELEASE held in Cairns (Far North Queensland), which is usually a place left off the screen culture map.
This year cyberTribe has worked in partnership to present the CIAF presents satellite event titled BLAK RELEASE, a new screen festival put together by new Cairns Indigenous Art Fair Director Janina Harding, to showcase and celebrate the Indigenous screen culture of Queenslands First People. Held in Cairns on August 2nd, BLAK RELEASE engaged and showcased screen makers from Far North Queensland alongside other Indigenous interdisciplinary practitioners from around the state and beyond, representing art forms such as animation, performance art, documentary, short film, music videos and digital storytelling.
The inaugural BLAK RELEASE screening event had a spotlight on Indigenous Producing and Torres Strait Islander film maker John Harvey was in attendance for a conversation to kick off the screening, which included five of Harveys works, with three of those being recent premieres at the 2015 Sydney Film Festival, and Melbourne International Film Festival. John studied Producing and Screening Writing at the Australian Film Television & Radio School and was the recipient of the AV Myer Award for Exceptional Indigenous Talent at the School.
Music videos were another area of focus for the BLAK RELEASE screening program which included works by standout Far North Queensland talents. Three works from the BLAK RELEASE program were also selected as finalists in the 2015 National Indigenous Music Awards in The Northern Territory. The overall winner of the Community Award was The Cairns Murri Crew, announced at the 2015 NIMA awards ceremony held in Darwin. Acknowledging the significant and critical role that music plays in spreading positive messages throughout Indigenous communities, the NIMAs Community Clip of the Year Award acknowledges the work happening across remote communities. The Cairns Murri Crew is made up of Murri students from Cairns High School. Their song Built To Last is a celebration of cultural survival, of building respectful, inclusive and vibrant futures for young people whilst acknowledging the struggle and fight for basic human rights that continues today.
Far North Queensland has a great depth of Indigenous arts practice, with a growing visual arts industry, and for BLAK RELEASE and also cyberTribes SOLID SCREEN Festival in 2014 and 16 September 2015, our intention has been to compliment this strength and provide opportunities and experiences for local and visiting CIAF audiences and Indigenous practitioners to engage with other mediums for expression, and also explore and document screen culture history in Film making and the other screen arts. In the Far North there are a number of number of Indigenous screen-makers already with long histories of working in a variety of screen mediums, who need more acknowledgement and showcasing events, which is long overdue.
Jenny Fraser
https://about.me/jennyfraser
links:
cyberTribe on facebook https://www.facebook.com/cyberTribegallery
www.cyberTribe.culture2.org
www.worldscreenculture.tv
http://blackout.net.au
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