Sian Harris is a Kurnu Paakantyi Nhuungku from Wilcannia, NSW. She has been working in the public education sector for the majority of her adult life, and has a specific interest in recording and teaching Indigenous languages and histories. She enjoys creating art and writing poetry that celebrates Blak women.
Her body of work comes from the worldview of a Kurnu Paakantyi Nhuungku. The pieces are at once personal and political, in keeping with the artist’s stance that her presence, as a self-presenting Blak Woman, in systems and structures built to exclude her, is a radical act. The work focuses on Paakantyi Spirituality; Aboriginal resistance; and representations of womanhood and the female form.
Artist Statement:
First Nations concepts of time are cyclical and all encompassing; what happened in the past is happening now. I can’t speak on the modern without addressing the past. The impacts of colonisation are seen in everyday life for us. One major aspect of colonisation that as impacted negatively on a further marginalised group within an already marginalised group is the historical erasure of Blak LGBTQI+ individuals. Our strengthening catchcry and affirmation, which asserts our sovereignty, is Always Was, Always Will Be – I extend this to our existence as Blak people who identify as LGBTQI+ . We have always been here. My work reaffirms and examines this.
It also declares that Aboriginal art can and should explore the gamut of human experience, just like other styles do, thus stepping away from often sanitised versions of voice and truth. This is a representation in a modern time that acknowledges existence of women like me from other times.
IG: @sian_harris_art