Katie West is an artist exploring her own sense of Aboriginality, informed by her family history and that of history and her heritage. West aims to contribute to the collective knowledge that defines Aboriginal identity in this country (Australia) as well as the collective experience of Indigenous peoples in other parts of the world.
While much suffering has occurred as a result of colonisation, West also feels that we now find ourselves in a unique position. At no other time has there been access to both the collective knowledge of ancestors accumulated over thousands of years as well as the collective knowledge of humanity via the Internet.
At no other time have we had so much choice regarding the information we may utilise to define our individual identities. West is going to make the most of it. For her transgenerational trauma ends here.
Katie's Ignite project explores her own sense of Aboriginality and how it runs parallel to a historical narrative informed by trans-generational trauma experienced by Aboriginal people in Australia.
Latest Update
By Katie West
Over the last couple of months I feel I have still been coming to grips with what is a really complex concept with infinite possibilities. My main achievement in this time is the creation of a blog. The process of writing has helped to clarify my ideas. I have also created a twitter account that includes a link to the blog. As time goes on I want to use these two mediums to document my progress and encourage some dialogue. I am now also considering the use of online surveys to gather information that could be used as the basis for future works. In particular, asking people to visualise what they imagine Australia to have been like before colonisation. This is part of the idea to start to define what Intergenerational healing might entail, and to move away from the narrative of trauma.
I have met with Olga once so far. This first meeting was a really great starting point, for the simple reason of having a conversation about my work outside of my own head. Olga has also provided some feedback through my blog in regard to intergenerational trauma.
Creating the blog and entering a domain like twitter was quite a step for me in terms of publicising myself as an artist. I have created a couple of pages one defining my understanding/definition of the Bricoleur, and the other regarding Intergenerational trauma. The next step is to make regular posts about the actual process or making.
In the last week I have started to experiment with creating images utilising symbols and my personal family photos. I was resisting using these photos as I felt I should attempt new processes, but having rediscovered the importance of these images I can see that this is something that is intrinsic to my creative process. I think of these first few images as self-portraits.
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Katie is an emerging artist who is keen to explore her own sense of Aboriginality and how it runs parallel to a historical narrative informed by Trans-generational trauma experienced by Aboriginal people in Australia. - See more at: http://www.artsource.net.au/Artist-Services/Ignite-Initiative#sthash.6mrGd7ZQ.dpuf