Taking inspiration from the Aboriginal Tent Embassy assembled by activists on the lawn of Parliament House in Canberra in 1972, Richard Bell’s Embassy is a mobile art installation that both reflects upon a pivotal moment in the Indigenous Australian land rights movement, and reveals the extent to which the struggle for self-determination continues today, in Australia and internationally.
Since its launch in 2013, Bell’s green canvas tent, with its sign declaring, “White invaders you are living on stolen land”, has been steadily touring the world – from Sydney and Brisbane to New York, Venice and Jerusalem.
Bell’s Embassy provides a platform for presentations, discussions, screenings and performances which explore topics such as the high rates of suicide among Aboriginal Australians and government efforts to close Indigenous communities in the Outback. In its recent presentation as part of the Performa festival in New York, Embassy included discussions about the Black Lives Matter movement and First Nation activism in Canada and the United States.
In Melbourne, Bell’s guests will include activist Gary Foley, who was instrumental in establishing the original Aboriginal Tent Embassy and Alan Michelson, a US-based artist and activist of the Mohawk nation and co-founder of the “Indigenous New York” program at The New School’s Vera List Centre.
Bell’s Embassy will occupy the second floor of the Potter during the presentation of the exhibition Not As The Songs Of Other Lands: 19th Century Australian and American Landscape Painting.
Friday, 6-8
Gary Foley
Tony Birch
Paola Balla
Saturday, 2-5
Robbie Thorpe
Vivian Malo
Alan Michelson (day TBC)
Sunday, 2-5
Gary Murray
Marge Thorpe
Alan Michelson (day TBC)
