Black Gum #2, from the series Australian Graffiti

Label

In the series Australian Graffiti, Christian Thompson photographs himself wearing sculptural wreaths and headpieces that are made entirely of Australian native flowers, playing with the double-hinged designation “Australian Native.” This term once encompassed both Indigenous people and the flora and fauna of Australia, and Thompson’s work speaks to the history of referring to Indigenous people under the Commonwealth’s Flora and Fauna Act. Although deeply critical of these dehumanizing classifications, Thompson nevertheless acknowledges an affinity with these flowers, and the series suggests a deeply symbiotic and sensorial, rather than fraught or competitive, relationship. As insignia of Australia, these flowers are used on the national coat of arms, as emblems of states and territories, and to celebrate the centenary of federation. Thompson’s photographs, however, refuse to be co-opted as colonial trophies and rearticulate the flowers’ central associations with Indigenous ways of caring for the land.

From the 2020 exhibition Shifting the Lens: Contemporary Indigenous Australian Photography, curated by Jami C. Powell, Curator of Indigenous Art

Course History

WRIT 5, Expository Writing, Carl Thum, Winter 2013

WRIT 5, Indigenous Knowledge and Development, Kenneth Bauer, Winter 2013

ARTH 16, ANTH 50, Australian Aborigional Art, Howard Morphy, Fall 2012

ARTH 16, ANTH 50, Australian Aborigional Art, Howard Morphy, Fall 2012

ARTH 16, ANTH 50, Australian Aborigional Art, Howard Morphy, Fall 2012

ARTH 16, ANTH 50, Australian Aborigional Art, Howard Morphy, Fall 2012

WRIT 5, Nature and Imagination: The Meanings of Place, William Nichols, Fall 2012

SART 29, Photography I, Brian Miller, Fall 2012

SART 30, Photography II, Brian Miller, Fall 2012

SART 25, Painting I, Esme Thompson, Fall 2012

SART 25, Painting I, Enrico Riley, Fall 2012

ANTH 30, Hunters and Gatherers, Nathaniel Dominy, Fall 2012

THEA 28, Dance Composition, Ford Evans, Fall 2012

SART 15, Drawing I, Gerald Auten, Fall 2012

SART 20, SART 71, Drawing II, Drawing III, Colleen Randall, Fall 2012

NAS 42, Gender Issues in Native American Life, Vera Palmer, Fall 2012

ARTH 16, ANTH 50.4, Indigenous Australian Art and the Politics of Curation, Stephen Gilchrist, Winter 2012

ARTH 16, ANTH 50.4, Indigenous Australian Art and the Politics of Curation, Stephen Gilchrist, Winter 2012

WRIT 5, Visual Culture, Aimee Bahng, Winter 2015

FREN 2, Introductory French II, Gabriele Nencieu, Winter 2015

FREN 2, Introductory French II, Kelly McConnell, Winter 2015

WRIT 8, Writing with Media, Kenneth Bauer, Spring 2015

SART 30, SART 75, Photography II and III, Virginia Beahan, Spring 2019

SART 29, Photography I, Christina Seely, Spring 2019

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Fall 2019

ANTH 3.02, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Fall 2019

SART 29, Photography I, Christina Seely, Fall 2019

COCO 21, What's In Your Shoebox?, Francine A'Ness and Prudence Merton, Spring 2020

ANTH 3, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2021

GEOG 72.01/AAAS 67.50/WGSS 66.09, Black Consciousness Black Feminism, Abby Neely, Spring 2022

SART 20/SART 71, Drawing II/III, Jen Caine, Spring 2022

WGSS 16.01, Contemporary Issues in Feminism, Mingwei Huang, Spring 2021

Sociology 1.01, Introduction to Sociology, Kimberly Rogers, Spring 2023

Exhibition History

About Face: Self-Portraiture in Contemporary Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 23-August 30, 2015.

Crossing Cultures: The Owen and Wagner Collection of Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Art at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 15, 2012-March 10, 2013; Toledo Museum of Art, April 11-July 14, 2013.

Shifting the Lens: Indigenous Australian Photography, Louise and Morton Kaish Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, February 15-June 21, 2020.

Publication History

Stephen Gilchrist, editor, Crossing Cultures, The Owen and Wagner Collection of Contemporary Aboriginal Art at the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2012, p. 56; p. 158, no. 113; backcover

John R. Stomberg, The Hood Now: Art and Inquiry at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2019, p. 209, ill. plate no. 140.

Provenance

Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia; sold to Will Owen (1952-2015) and Harvey Wagner (1931-2017), Chapel Hill, North Carolina, March 11, 2008; lent to present collection, 2011; given to present collection, 2013.

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