Kastom A Service
$540
Tamara Whyte
Archival print on paper
Size: 42 x 59.4 cm
2017
5 in stock
Description
Set in the near apocalyptic future Kastom A Service uses archival imagery against a digitally enhanced background. The work engages the viewer in a conversation about socially sustainable food practices. The contrast between the sustainable techniques of the hunter who is catching for fish for his kin versus the representation of multinational wealth who can manipulate supply chains and markets asks the observer to consider their role in the sustainable practices and Aboriginal knowledge and practices. The individual, the Australian shopper, is positioned between these two representations, familiar with the Woolworths brand and experience and distantly familiar; yet not really, with the life of the Aboriginal hunter. The solitary figure hovering on the canoe serves to remind us that there a trove of knowledge and practice which has been dismissed or buried in the process of colonisation and capitalisation of land and waterways.
Tamara Whyte is an Aboriginal artist and writer. Her family descends from Warrgamay coastal far north Queensland and Vanuatu. She has a passion for stories that challenge and asks people to work towards an understanding of their own agency. She was recently awarded the inaugural Documentary Australia Foundation’s Indigenous Fellowship, for her concept Base 8. Base 8 explores mathematics embedded in the Kinship system of Central Arnhem Land.