Recipient of Sheila’s 2023 Michela and Adrian Fini Fellowship, Alana Hunt, recently opened her solo exhibition Surveilling a Crime Scene at the Northern Centre for Contemporary Art in Darwin. The Fellowship helped fund Alana’s exhibition and an accompanying book.
Surveilling a Crime Scene, (2019-23) examines the materialisation of non-indigenous life on Miriwoong Country—through the town of Kununurra and its surrounds. Forming gradually over the last decade of the artist’s life, the threads of this work forge a tapestry that recognises colonisation not as history but as a continuous and present violence, one that is deceptively ordinary.
The exhibition features a super 8mm film; a flip book of the film; and a constellation of 35mm photographs. The book is available online.
Image: Sheila directors and supporters travelled to Darwin for the exhibition opening. Photo: Jack Bullen (instagram: @jacksingtonesquire).
Other work by Alana can also be seen in Perth. As part of a multi-year residency with the Kimberley Land Council through Spaced’s Rural Utopias program, Alana produced the video work Nine Hundred and Sixty Seven (2021). Narrated in full and without pause over 2hrs 41min by Sam Walsh AO, former CEO of Rio Tinto, Alana’s video work lists the project summaries of 967 applications seeking legal permission to destroy, damage or alter an Aboriginal site via section 18 of the WA Aboriginal Heritage Act (1972) between 2010-20.
The video recently screened at the Northbridge Plaza and can also be seen until 18 February 2024 at the Art Gallery of Western Australia as part of the exhibition Rural Utopias.
