AustLit

Journey of a Woman's Strength is not only the title of Barbara Mundraby's latest artwork, but the theme of her life's enduring work. Barbara was commissioned exclusively by international Indigenous arts retailer Mainie —led by artistic director Charmaine Saunders — to produce a piece of work for the recent launch of their new Cairns gallery late last year. 
 

MAK Mak Marranungu rap artist J-MILLA (Jacob Nichaloff) has already amassed 15,000 Instagram followers, 18,000 more on Facebook and his 2018 track My People has now been viewed more than 100,000 times on YouTube, all of which he insists is lust the beginning" of his career in the music industry. 

As our calendar pages turn to another year, it is easy to get lost on the feeling that nothing has changed in a positive and meaningful way for our people. It is true and a valid expression of our emotions that we feel when faced with what it means to be blak in Australia. 

Sydney Festival's Blak Out program is the largest single commissioner of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander works in the country. Artistic director Wesley Enoch said Sydney Festival 2020 presents 46 new co-commissioned works, a great many with Indigenous themes at their heart. "There's politics and social perspectives all throughout everything we do," Enoch said. "And it's interesting this idea of history and retrospectives. When you have someone like (visual artist) Vernon Ah Kee doing his work, called The Island, which is looking at Palm Island and (artist) Fiona Foley and her exhibition work, it's both the contemporary and the historical sitting side by side. "When there is more representation, you can look at the diversity of the voices that non-Indigenous Australia is hearing from us."