Indigenous student art calls for us to stand up

Swinburne student Jack Dorgan has taken out the prize in the 2022 NAIDOC Design Competition.

Run by the Moondani Toombadool Centre’s Indigenous Student Services team and supported by Student Life, the competition saw four Indigenous finalists go to a popular vote.

After hundreds of votes, the Swinburne community chose Jack as this year’s winner.

Catch up on the 2022 winner and finalists below.

Winner – Jack Dorgan

Jack Dorgan is a part of Wemba-Wemba on his father’s side, born and raised in Echuca on the banks of the Murray River. He started creating artwork during 2020 to relieve the stress of Year 12 and the pandemic. He continues to enjoy art while he studies.

"My artwork was inspired by the Indigenous flag and is meant to represent my Indigenous identity. It allows for me to 'Get up! Stand up! Show up!' for this part of my identity," he says.

Jack was also a finalist in the 2021 NAIDOC Week Design Competition.

Finalist – Bridget Mason

Bridget Mason is a self-taught artist from Renmark, South Australia. She is new to drawing and oil painting, having started in 2021 while travelling around Australia. Recently, she has moved to Melbourne and set up a small painting studio in her home.

“My late father was an Aboriginal painter and I take great inspiration from his work,” she says. “I am still finding my own style as a painter, but I greatly enjoy painting portraits and creating surrealist and abstract paintings.”

Her painting, 'My Father's Necklace,' displays the power and pain of Aboriginal people working together through injustice. It embraces the 2022 NAIDOC Week theme to ‘Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up!’ together as community to improve the rights of Indigenous people.

Finalist – Shelley Hollingsworth

Proud Worimi woman, student of the Diploma of Community Services and 33-year-old mother of three, Shelley Hollingsworth, has lived on Bunnerong Country her whole life.

Her piece, ‘Dingo Spirit,’ was actually created as a gift to her colleagues when she left for a new opportunity. It thanks them for friendship and mentorship working with targeted care packages for children at high risk of entering residential care.

“The work we do is about teaching, healing, empowering, advocating and really everything that this year’s NAIDOC theme is about. Get our kids to ‘Get up! Stand up! Show up!’ to make their lives their own and set the path to being a young adult," she says.

Like the other finalists, Shelley is new to painting.

“I have never ever submitted my art in a competition and only been painting for self-care, cultural connection and metal health for 12 months. It’s become my passion and a piece of me. These are an extension of my own self-determination and my strength as a new mum and a Proud Worimi woman.”

Finalist – Grace Auld

Grace Auld is a Kanolu person living on unceded Boon Wurrung Land. She is studying Media and Communications and Indigenous Studies, and hopes to use her media production skills to assist Indigenous & LGBTQI+ organisations.

They are an autistic lesbian and use any pronouns – she/they/he.

“Though I can appreciate the aim to highlight our long history of resistance and activism, I think the theme itself, 'Get Up, Stand Up, Show Up' is problematic as it acts as a call to action, to allies, Blackfullas or both. If it is addressed to Blackfullas, it seems ignorant as we have indeed been getting up, standing up, showing up ever since colonisation began.

“If it is addressed to allies, it seems a little misguided. Of course, encouraging people to be allies is a good thing, but NAIDOC has historically been for mob and by mob, whereas Reconciliation Week involves 'everyone' and insinuates that ’both sides’ have done something wrong and just need to get along.

“Reconciliation Week also tends to place the burden of education and emotional labour onto mob. I don't want NAIDOC to become this. I want mob to be centred and celebrated."