NIRIN's Cinematic Worlds
An exploration of video works featured in NIRIN, the 22nd Biennale of Sydney
By Biennale of Sydney
22nd Biennale of Sydney: NIRIN
NIRIN, the title of the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, is an artist and First Nations-led Biennale, presenting an expansive exhibition of contemporary art that connects local communities and global networks.
Presented by filmmaker, curator and historian Greta Morton Elangué and art historian and curator Jessyca Hutchens, we ask, amongst over 700 artworks that traverse various forms of media, what place does NIRIN give to the moving image? And what spaces are created by the films themselves?
From their interior worlds, through to their dialogue with architecture, to their unsettling of historical narratives embedded within sites, film holds a very special place in NIRIN, opening out onto many different cinematic worlds.
Jessyca Hutchens is a Palyku woman, living and working in Perth, Western Australia. She is an art historian and curator, currently completing a DPhil in Art History at the University of Oxford. She recently worked as the Curatorial Assistant to the Artistic Director at the Biennale of Sydney, on the landmark exhibition NIRIN. She has worked as a lecturer in Global Art History and Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham, and is a founding editor of an online journal of artistic research (oarplatform.com).
Greta Morton Elangué is a curator/filmmaker and historian who divides her time between Australia and France. She recently co-curated FILMS D'AUTEUR-LANGUES ANCESTRALES at the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, France in December, 2019. She is a film graduate of the VCA School of Film & TV (Melbourne, Australia) and a Phd History candidate, EHESS (Paris, France). Her work is interdisciplinary, focusing on curatorial, historical and filmic practices to explore Black diasporic and Indigenous expression. Greta collaborated with the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, led by First nations Artistic Director and artist, Brook Andrew as part of the Exhibitions team. She is currently co-curating a film installation program for Paris, France for June 2021.
NIRIN at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (2020)Biennale of Sydney
“…there is something about the way that space is used throughout that feels like staging, like installation as its own form of mise-en-scene, and these stagings feel very specific and and attentive to the needs of each film, whether they’re being placed in dialogue with collections and architecture.” – Greta Morton Elangué
Explore NIRIN's Cinematic Worlds
Listen to the following Podcast, presented by Jessyca Hutchens and Greta Morton Elangué, with special guest Nicholas Galanin (Sitka, Alaska). Galanin speaks about his two-channel film work Tsu Héidei Shugaxtutaan which powerfully intervenes across two of the Court Galleries at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Then, scroll through images that introduce you to our featured artists who use film as a tool to explore complex conversations around sovereignty, colonialism and representation: Lisa Reihana, Arthur Jafa, Warwick Thornton, Barbara McGrady, Nicholas Galanin and Aziz Hazara.
NIRIN's Cinematic WorldsBiennale of Sydney
Meth Kelly Meth Kelly (2020) by Warwick ThorntonBiennale of Sydney
Warwick Thornton (Australia)
The video installation Meth Kelly explores how Australia’s colonial frontier narrative has been shaped by the imaginary heroic actions of the cult figure Ned Kelly. Through a video work projected in one of the shadowy tunnels of the ex-convict structures at Cockatoo Island, this work questions the legitimacy of Kelly’s hero status through a modern reinterpretation of his moral persona. Read more
Te Wai Ngunguru - Nomads of the Sea Installation ImageBiennale of Sydney
Lisa Reihana (New Zealand)
Te Wai Ngunguru (Nomads of the Sea) weaves historical fact with fiction in this striking time-based installation which re-imagines the late 18th century nomadic life of the female convict Charlotte Badger, a pakeha (European) woman of British descent who is co-opted by a Maori chief. Read more
Bow Echo Bow Echo (2019) by Aziz HazaraBiennale of Sydney
Aziz Hazara (Afghanistan)
The multi-screen installation Bow Echo, is set in the high hills of Kabul Province. Battered by high winds, five boys climb and try to stay perched atop a large rock. Their aim, to play a plastic children’s bugle to announce the urgency of their community’s plight against repression. Explore the artwork
Ngiyaningy Maran Yaliwaunga Ngaara-li (Our Ancestors Are Always Watching) Ngiyaningy Maran Yaliwaunga Ngaara-li (Our Ancestors Are Always Watching) (2020) by Barbara McGrady (with John Janson-Moore)Biennale of Sydney
Barbara McGrady (Australia)
Ngiyaningy Maran Yaliwaunga Ngaara-li (Our Ancestors Are Always Watching) provides an insight into what it means to be a First Nations person surviving and thriving in a colonial world. It curates a lifetime of her photographic work into an immersive, multichannel audiovisual black takeover of the white cube: ‘a Blackout’. Read the story
The White Album Installation ImageBiennale of Sydney
Arthur Jafa (USA)
The political, intimate and pop-cultural film footage in Arthur Jafa’s The White Album constructs a portrait of the United States of America and a racialised view of the complexities of ‘whiteness’ through personal opinion and confronting news events that continue to affect many people today. Read more
NIRIN at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (2020)Biennale of Sydney
Nicholas Galanin (USA)
The performative visual languages of Tsu Héidei Shugaxtutaan Part I and Part II call out to one another, together challenging reductive perceptions of Indigeneity and what is contemporary. Occupying their own plane within the Grand Courts, the works introduce sound, movement, and dance into the relative stillness.
Tsu Héidei Shugaxtutaan (We Will Again Open This Container of Wisdom That Has Been Left in Our Care), Part I Installation ImageBiennale of Sydney
In Tsu Héidei Shugaxtutaan (We Will Again Open This Container of Wisdom That Has Been Left in Our Care) Part I, hip-hop dancer David Elsewhere’s movements emanate impressions of timelessness against traditional Tlingit song.
Watch Part I, directed by Nicholas Galanin.
Tsu Héidei Shugaxtutaan (We Will Again Open This Container of Wisdom That Has Been Left in Our Care), Part II Tsu Héidei Shugaxtutaan (We Will Again Open This Container of Wisdom That Has Been Left in Our Care), Part II (2006) by Nicholas GalaninBiennale of Sydney
