FREEDOM RIDERS: ART & ACTIVISM 1960s TO NOW

Timed to coincide with last week’s NAIDOC week, Sydney University’s University Art Gallery opened Freedom Riders: Art and Activism 1960s to Now, which investigates the harsh social and political realities of Aboriginal communities in Australia, and the activism movement addressing this.  It takes as its starting point Aboriginal artist Robert Campbell Jnr’s powerful portrait of equal rights pioneer Dr Charles Perkins. Perkins – an international soccer player, one of the first Aboriginal university graduates, and the first Aboriginal person to lead a government department – is a fitting introduction to the exhibition, which is a colourful and affecting portrayal of the struggle for equal opportunity in our country. Campbell Jnr’s vivid paintings are complemented by the (also self-taught) Elaine Russell, who also depicts scenes of daily Aboriginal life in decades past – from weekly inspection of their houses to being barred from the local pool. Other stand-out works include a more recent video installation from Christian Thompson, a haunting moving portrait of three young Aboriginal women, and a sculptural installation by Jonathan Jones, whose aluminium, fluorescent light and tarpaulin piece evokes the haphazard domestic lives of many early Indigenous communities forced into cramped and regimented living quarters outside town. Tying all the works together, and contextualising them for those of us not as familiar as we could be with the darker side of our nation’s history is Rachel Perkins and Ned Lander’s documentary Blood Brothers: Freedom Ride, which retraces the journey of 1965’s Freedom Ride, a student activist trip through Orange, Wellington, Dubbo, Walgett, and Moree to protest te exclusion of Aboriginal people from social and cultural life. The exhibition is well put together, a thoughtful and visually stunning look at what remains an important issue in Australia.

Until Sep 25, Sydney University Gallery, War Memorial Arch, northern end of the Quadrangle, University of Sydney, 9351 2812, sydney.edu.au/museums