In Visible Ink - Episode 1: Decolonising Visual Culture on Nyungar Boodjah (2021)

MFTWA

In Visible Ink is a Museum of Freedom and Tolerance endeavour that makes visible the invisible. Through sharing and amplifying stories, histories, art, conversations and projects that inspire people to see differently, it aims to make changes towards a more just world.

The BLM movement transformed global consciousness in 2020, bringing questions relating to the stories we make visible in our civic and popular culture to the fore as statues and monuments around the world tumbled.

In solidarity with the protests, the names of some of the hundreds of Indigenous people who have died in custody were projected on a landmark sculpture in Walyalup (Fremantle) during 2020, bringing into focus place, visibility, history and the resonance of the BLM movement in Western Australia, the state with the largest number of Indigenous deaths in custody.

To launch our 2021 In Visible Ink Symposium, we convened conversations around the themes of deconstruction and reconstruction of visual and civic culture.

This powerful opening conversation led by Aboriginal women and women of colour, featured a line up of amazing speakers (see bios below):

• Chaired by Sisonke Msimang
• Dr Hannah McGlade
• Professor Suvendrini Perera
• Professor Anna Arabindan Kesson
• Shaheen Hughes

Join the Museum of Freedom and Tolerance and special guests on a multi-sensory journey as we provoke our audience to question the visibility of dominant civic and cultural landscapes and landmarks, learn how to see differently, and actively seek a fairer and more just approach to systemic racism, discrimination, incarceration and inequality.

Speaker biographies:

Sisonke Msimang is the author of Always Another Country: A memoir of exile and home and The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela. She is a South African writer whose work is focussed on race, gender and democracy. She has written for a range of major international news publications and has held fellowships at Yale University, the Aspen Institute and the Bellagio Centre. She is currently a fellow at the WISER Institute, at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Shaheen Hughes is CEO of The Museum of Freedom and Tolerance. Shaheen has a background in international, national and state policy and advocacy, a master’s degree in International Communications and an honours in Art History and English Literature. Shaheen is a tireless advocate of the arts, passionate about creating diverse and inclusive environments and social justice solutions and committed to fighting hate and intolerance.

Suvendrini Perera is a Curtin Distinguished Professor and Research Professor of Cultural Studies in the School of Media, Culture & Creative Arts. She has published widely on issues of social justice, including decolonisation, race, ethnicity and multiculturalism, refugee topics, critical whiteness studies and Asian-Australian studies. Suvendi has combined her academic career with participation in policymaking, public life and activism.

Hannah McGlade is an Indigenous human rights lawyer, Associate Professor at Curtin Law School, and member of the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues. Her book Our Greatest Challenge, Aboriginal children and human rights received the 2011 Stanner Award. Hannah has been at the forefront of the development of key organisations in Perth and WA, in relation to Aboriginal women legal supports, Noongar radio and Stolen Generations and healing.

Anna Kesson is an immigrant art historian, writer and curator. She is Assistant Professor of Black Diasporic Art with a joint appointment in the Depts of African American Studies and Art and Archaeology at Princeton. Her first book is Black Bodies, White Gold: Art, Cotton & Commerce in the Atlantic World.