Australia's Tent Of Resistance In India

바카라�White Invaders You Are Living On Stolen Land바카라�. These words are written in bold with black and red ink on a tent made of canvas. This installation바카라�called 바카라�Aboriginal Embassy바카라�바카라�has been created by putting up a tent outside the main Biennale venue in Fort Kochi by Australian aboriginal artist Richard Bell, 70.

Constituted of different videos, installations and paintings, this tent stands in the face of the ruling classes across the world who have denied dues to the indigenous people. One of the posters pasted on the tent reads: 바카라�If You Can바카라�t Let Me Live Aboriginal Why Preach Democracy바카라�. This tent is a symbol of neglect, distance and dispossession.

The concept of 바카라�Aboriginal Embassy바카라� is rooted in the long movement that has been ongoing in front of the Old Parliament building at Canberra, Australia for more than 50 years.

At the peak of the black rights movement across the United States and the other parts of the world, Australian indigenous activists like Michael Anderson, Billy Craigie, Bertie Williams and Tony Coorey left their base in Redfern and reached Canberra. In 1972, on January 26바카라�celebrated as Australia Day바카라�they planted a beach umbrella in front of the Parliament building with a sign that read: 바카라�Aboriginal Embassy바카라�. By calling it an Embassy these activists tried to make it clear that they neither had an engagement or deal with the Crown, nor had they ceded their land to them.

바카라�If the aboriginals open an embassy in their own land to express their strong displeasure, can they be blamed? The embassy has been taken up as a symbol reflecting the pitiful condition of aboriginals at an international level,바카라� says Bell, who considers his art a form of activism.

Seeking Solidarity

An integrated constituent of the indigenous rights movement, Bell바카라�s work questions the authority and moral of the colonisers who have taken over their lands. His tent that has been roaming around the world since 2013, seeks solidarity of all the indigenous people across the world. One of his most famous paintings titled 바카라�Immigration Policy바카라� (2017) reads, 바카라�YOU CAN GO NOW바카라�, in bold. These unapologetically assertive words pop out from the map of Australia that is whitewashed with a black background.

Bell has been calling for the restoration of indigenous rights for more than three decades. While talking to The Guardian newspaper he said: 바카라�We need a new constitution for a new republic.바카라� He feels the exchange of money and land is the only thing that can 바카라�reset바카라� the whole system. 바카라�There바카라�s got to be a day of reckoning. Exchanges of money and land cannot be avoided. Until then, we바카라�re never going to say that you (non-indigenous people) belong here. You won바카라�t be able to say that until we say you can,바카라� Bell told The Guardian in an interview.

Reflection of his demands that the indigenous people must be paid back and only then they would decide whether to let the colonisers stay could be found in his work titled 바카라�Pay the Rent바카라�. A digital board shows the ongoing and increasing debts of the Australian government to the indigenous people.

Bell바카라�s works have never been received well by the white Australian elite artist groups. In 2019, he wanted to take the tent to the Venice Biennale. However, his proposals were not accepted perhaps due to the critique of the inner functions of the art world. 바카라�My proposal was critiquing the processes and inner workings of the art world. That바카라�s what I do,바카라� says Bell. As he was not allowed to present his work, he gate-crashed and took a replica of the Australian pavilion bounded in chains and pushed it into a canal on a barge.

바카라�Aboriginal Art is a White Thing바카라�

Born in 1953 in Charleville, Queensland, he grew up amid extreme poverty. His childhood was spent waiting for the white men to throw corrugated irons to them. These were the constituents they used for making tin shacks. In 1968, after the historic referendum that gave the Commonwealth the power to make laws for the aboriginal people of the land, bulldozers were sent to demolish his house. They were moved to a house that was inhabitable.

Bell바카라�s activism and life, however, changed when he landed in Redfern, the then boiling spot of the black rights movement. Since then, he started working with different activist organisations. Later, he also collaborated with the Black Panther member Emory Douglas, who is an American graphic artist.

One of the major artistic statements of Bell is the Bell바카라�s theorem. It reads: 바카라�Aboriginal Art is a White Thing바카라�. This assertive statement that he made in 2002 dominated his art works and the collaborative efforts he took up after that.

In 2003, he, along with a few other artists, started proppaNow바카라�an artists바카라� collective that trains and gives space to aboriginal artists. However, Bell thinks that this Brisbane-based collective actually teaches collaboration. 바카라�The power of the collective is always greater than the sum of its parts. And we use that to assert ourselves into the Australian art scene,바카라� says Bell.

This idea of collective came from his childhood experience. He used to see how the migrant workers coming from the city were asked for money by the villagers. 바카라�One of the men would come back from work and they바카라�d be all cashed up. And, of course, everybody would borrow money from them. The first thing that the woman in the family would have to do is go and pay back all the people who lent her money when their husbands came home!바카라� Bell told the National Indigenous Television.

The collective living and building of solidarity drove him to work as an activist-artist. The recent documentary titled 바카라�You Can Go Now바카라� that features Bell바카라�s life and works rightly portrays him as he wants to be self-described바카라�an 바카라�activist masquerading as an artist바카라�. The cry of Bell perhaps could be better heard in the words of a poet from his own land, Zelda Quakawoot:

A right to be heard  
Not censored of word  
A voice that is true  
Not a momentary view  
A word that is said  
It remains in our heads  
Of value that바카라�s true  
In both me and you  
It signals the start  
From deep in our hearts  
A sentence recalls  
From the big to the small  
It flows like a stream바카라�  
바카라�I have a dream...바카라�

(This appeared in the print edition as "THE TENT OF RESISTANCE")