The rise in visibility of Indigenous practices in international contemporary art is a major phenomenon in the history of art being written, with the risk, at times, of becoming a simple label. The terms “hybridity” and “anthropophagy” (in reference to the “Cannibalist Manifesto” of Oswald de Andrade) were thus attached to Indigeneity to avoid identity assignments and to question the invention of variable practices and identities, thwarting the categories inherited from colonialism and making it possible to rethink the relationship to nature, territory, humans and other than humans.

By giving the floor to researchers and artists, this seminar aims to shift the focus of institutional questions towards those of creative processes, from assigned identities to practices by which the individuals self-identify and invent their relationships to the world.

For this second meeting at the Palais de Tokyo in relationship with Jonathan Jones’ exhibition untitled (transcription of country), anthropologist Géraldine Le Roux carries out a comparative study of several Australian and Oceanian artists’ devices, shedding light on a process of re-historicisation of ancient photographs. Since it’s about discussing the relations between creation and heritage – from the angle of circulation, appropriation and reinterpretation of old images and persistent représentations-, are also highlighted the discursive and performative strategies employed by these creators to integrate and question the contemporary art world.

Following her, Allan Clarke (Muruwari and Gomeroi filmmaker, investigative journalist, writer and producer) wants to address, subvert and rewrite the pervasive Australian media narrative around historical injustice and inequity between Indigenous and non-indigenous peoples.