Closure Dates and Opening Time
Submitted by admin
on Mon 25/02/2019 - 4:07pm
Screen Space – Megan Cope
Megan Cope The Blaktism 2014 (detail still). Single-channel HD video, edition 2/5, 8:04 minutes, State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through the Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation: TomorrowFund, 2015. © the artist, courtesy THIS IS NO FANTASY.
Screen Space – Megan Cope
The Blaktism 2014 is the first standalone video work by artist Megan Cope. It is highly theatrical in its examination of Aboriginal identity and issues of authenticity that are faced by fair-skinned Aboriginal people.
It does this by looking at Australian society’s intensive focus on skin colour as a way of deciding who is and isn’t a “real” Aboriginal person in urban areas.
With a type-cast crew, including a priest, hipsters and bikini-clad women, the artist submits herself to a baptism of authenticity; as if such a ceremony will legitimate her “blackness”. The video is a blast of good humour, which is sometimes the only way to tackle issues that are deeply offensive.
The Blaktism was commissioned for the Next Wave Festival in 2014 and was selected as the major prize-winning work at the Western Australian Indigenous Art Award in 2015.
Related Information
FREE
Share
