Artists

Tracy Moffatts work is influenced by aboriginal heitage and culture. Mofatt works with the media of film, photography, video and uses experimental techniques and artistic strategies to create a unique, visual style of cinema that challenges the stereotypical treatment of race through symbolic and political references. She was interested in presenting positive things about Aboriginbal Australia through her work.

"Night Cries" is a seventeen minute drama about a middle aged Aboriginal women caring for her adopted white mother. Most of the film describes the dreary lives of the two women and their daily activities such as feeding and bathing. There is no spoken dialogue only tense disturbing and aggressive narrative dominated by memory flashbacks to their earlier life. Political issues reflected in the film are both contemporary and historical. The story refers to the assimilation policy that forced Aboriginal children to be raised in white families.

Through Tracey Moffatts work we are able to see the social and political issues aboriginal people face and the way this has impacted on there lives.

Lin Onus is another contemporary Aboriginal artist that depicts similar political issues in his work. The vision of a united Australia, for the right of all people to pursue their lifestyles and culture in accordance to their own tradition was the central motivating force behind the work of Lin Onus. For most of his artistic life Lin Onus demonstrated his commitment to bridging the gap between urban and traditional, indiginous and white Australia in his multi-layered works. One of the biggest political and social issues depicted in his work is the interaction of black and white cultures.

"Fruit Bats" is an installation of fibre glass sculptures, featuring "rrark", a traditional cross hatching design paticular to the Arnhem region. The clothes line is a symbol of Australian white suburban living, which has been combined with traditional aboriginal colours and "rrark" on the bats hanging from the clothing line. There is a strange misture of symbols in this work. Even though his work depicts political issues faced by both indiginous and white Australians, there is also an element of humour.