Artistic perspectives on Indigenous Standpoint Theory: a visual practice of cultural activism
Creators: name: Munro-Harrison, Thomas
Publisher: name: RMIT University
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 360699
subject: Visual arts not elsewhere classified
classificationCode: 450110
subject: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander media, film, animation and photography

description: This PhD celebrates the pride and resurgence of people and cultures who have, now and always, existed independently of colonial interactions. My practice-based research project documents the ways Indigenous artists exercise self-determination to creatively express identity. The work explores a complex and significant issue evident in the depiction of Indigenous Australians in the media, which continues to stereotype or ignore Aboriginal perspectives. I argue these depictions require ongoing consideration and critique. I undertake this critique through my creative work as a form of resistance to colonial processes. My consideration of how Indigenous cultural practitioners “speak back” to and challenge such processes of colonisation affords me a new language to express my creative ideas.

My work presents these creative ideas through a graphic novel. To accomplish this goal, three interviews were conducted with the following practitioners: Beau DeBelle, Dr Jared Field and Uncle Jim Everett Puralia Meenamatta. To allow me to familiarise myself with the interview process, I conducted an interview with myself and this opportunity gave me a chance to reflect on the questions I was posing to my interviewees. The self-interview also granted insights into issues of identity, Indigenous self-determination and survivance. 

As a Wiradjuri Graphic Designer, I engaged with a range of literature from Standpoint Theory to Indigenous methodologies and creative knowledge systems. Standpoint Theory is situated in the perspectives and experiences of the individual and the knowledge that arises from those realities. This helped me both creatively as a designer and intellectually to present my Indigenous ontology through my experience. In exercising my self-determination and exploration of my culture, I sought to convey a sense of revitalisation and dynamism in the deeper understanding of who I am. 

My graphic art practice acts as the site of this self-determining activity and process, taking the form of a graphic novel in which meaning-making and identity are explored in ways that demonstrate the ongoing survivance, resurgence and modernity of my Wiradjuri culture. The performative expression of these theoretical models within my work, enacts and extends on these concepts of Indigenous Standpoint Theory, through the Visualisation of Indigenous Standpoint Theory as Activism (VISTA). VISTA is a concept I developed to bring together my creative practice and lived experience.

Consulting with Indigenous cultural practitioners offered a way to legitimise primary sources of cultural practice in the form of Indigenous oral sources. This direct engagement enabled me, as an Indigenous researcher, to reflect upon and present the perspectives of these practitioners on the subjects discussed. The self-representation of these Indigenous standpoints, through my own self-determined cultural practice, as an Indigenous creative practitioner, resists ongoing forms of colonisation in contemporary everyday life. 

In representing the views expressed by my interlocutors, I was attentive to how Indigenous peoples draw from our deep cultural foundations to express ourselves and talk about our life experiences. This approach supported my research goal of showcasing examples of “speaking back” through the voices of my interviewees and presenting my own creative practice as a form of everyday resistance.