Mermaids, or Aiden in Wonderland

Mermaids, or Aiden in Wonderland pivots between an animated vision of a toxic world and promotional videos from multinational behemoths the likes of Monsanto and Dow. The installation’s “presentfictional” world reengineers colonial displacement. Here, only the Indigenous people of Australia are capable of surviving the future of poisoned lands and seascapes that threaten the Europeans who are described as being incapable of existing outdoors for long periods of time. Contrasting the display of misleading documentary assertions of the safe ecological practices of multinational chemo is the parallel journey of Aiden. A young indigenous man who was removed as a baby to participate in a medical experiment to save the white race, Aiden journeys across the indigenous landscape with his father and brother as they encounter contrasting possible futures and pasts.

Karrabing Film Collective (Australia)

Karrabing consists of over 50 members, all but one Indigenous stakeholders for the land, with ages from new-born to elder. The Karrabing Indigenous Corporation seeks to integrate their parents and grandparents ways of life into their contemporary struggles to educate their children, create economically sustainable cultural and environmental businesses, and support their homeland centres.

Karrabing Indigenous Corporation’s success, we believe, comes from an openness to the actual rhythms of everyday life in the small rural community where most Karrabing reside. By encouraging our younger members to take artistic leads and refusing to abide by external production protocols, Karrabing have found that the interest of younger members in the lands from which the linguistic knowledge emerges has increased exponentially. The group already has about ten young members between the ages of 15-30 who are emerging as Karrabing leaders.