b.+Leah+King-Smith

== = = Find stories or narratives that relate to the Koori people of Victoria and how they were dispossed of their land. A. Mr Service //those physical ailments, bodily disorders and psychological or mental conditions which impair the health of Aboriginal people and the well-being of Aboriginal communities resulting directly or indirectly from sociological disadvantage; economic deprivation; racism; assimilationist legislation, policies and practices; unemployment; lack of housing; dispossession, alienation from land; forced separation from parents, children, families and communities; and other traumas, which impinge and have impinged upon Aboriginal people since dispossession. (Gary Foley 1999)// || On 26 January 1988, placards and T-shirts printed with the words "White Australia has a Black History" were televised across the nation and overseas. This slogan pointed to the shadow side of white-Australia's shining deeds, the history of violence, dispossession, exploitation, and the breaking up of Aboriginal families. When it was first published, //Don't Take// thus joined a chorus of Aboriginal voices speaking out publicly and powerfully against whitewashed versions of Australia's history.
 * The word was "Socio-somatic illness" which means, ||

By contrast, when Aboriginal people speak about the past, they often emphasise its continuity with the present. As the Oogeroo Noonuccal put it in her poem "The Past":

Let no one say the past is dead, The past is all about us and within. (Inside Black Australia, p.99)

B. Sam

C. Luke To say that the people lacked a written language is also somewhat naïve. Painting and rock engravings are use to record events and teachings. Story telling, with or without the such visuals aids is important for the passing on of knowledge, both theological, philosophical, and legal. Story telling is an effective way of imparting knowledge to the young, particularly where safety and survival are concerned. Because of its significance, the Koori people had evolved the art of story telling way beyond that of the typical Eoropean. Many stories have multiple levels of meaning, depending on the level of understanding or learning of the observer. In Koori society, learning continues throughout life, where the level attained is over to the individual, much as in other societies. Respect is shown for the elders in the community by applying the title of "uncle" or "auntie". There are many Koori languages through Australia, and all have words for men and women that have reached a pinnacle of learning and understanding: the wise people. []

G. Alon

G. Richard The bond shared between European settlers indigenous Australians was one of major indifference, both cultures were plagued by violence in their struggle to understand and accept on another’s cultures. The lack of understanding between the two cultures is a presence that embodies most of Leah King- Smith’s work. Aboriginal custom and ideology has come under great confusion with European settlers, specifically with the Koori people of Victoria. European settler’s claimed the Koori people had no form of written which is entirely false. The Koori people do indeed possess a written language that thrives on speech and illustrations rather than written form. Needless to say this form of communication succeeded well for the Koori people who detailed significant events on with rock art as well as spread theological, philosophical, and legal knowledge through the use of complex story telling. The indifferences between Europeans settlers and Aboriginals is evident but only through the lack of understanding and acceptance did this clash of cultures occur. http://www.waynekrause.com/australian_aboriginal_koori.html

H. Nic

Leah has a black Aboriginal mother and a white Australian father, and whilst she feels her Aboriginality is a large contributing factor to her creative motivation, her cultural blend has fostered human principles of resolution and mediation. Most of Leah’s work is essentially about coming to terms with struggle, either on the cultural level or the artistic. Leah’s current series of pictures titled Beyond Capture revisit the La Trobe Library’s historical pictures, but reveal only visually liminal fragments. These fragments, as well as the artists’ drawings and photographs of landscapes, are brought together in the digital environment. The autobiographical presence of the artist is whispered in shadows against the rocks or toes caught by the fish-eye lens. []

L Tex

M. Julian

In the early 1990’s Leah’s work was brought to prominence with the exhibition of a series of 10 large-scale photographs titled Patterns of Connection. The series re-presented 19th century library archival pictures of Victorian Aborigines in a way that evoked the spiritual presence of the people who were being contextualized (and thus imprisoned) by the government archival document worldview. Leah King-Smith is asking people to see the presence of the Aboriginal ancestors as being strong in the present, and to think about historical overviews (especially 19th century governmental) as limiting to indigenous people. Leah has a black Aboriginal mother and a white Australian father, and whilst she feels her Aboriginality is a large contributing factor to her creative motivation, her cultural blend has fostered human principles of resolution and mediation. Most of Leah’s work is essentially about coming to terms with struggle, either on the cultural level or the artistic.

[]

P. Ben

Leah King-Smith was born in Gympie in 1957. She completed a bachelor of Fine Art in Photography and today captivates audiences with her photography. "The issue is really about the prevalent view that several views can operate at the same time. That is what ambiguity is. Meaning might shift from here to there, depending on whatever psychic framework is operating...and that’s why I’ve called this Liminal Interstices..., because an interstice is a crevice or a place right on the ridge between something which is beyond our threshold of perception, and it only just makes it into our understanding. That’s what I am trying to navigate. And it seems like it is perfectly alright for me to do that. But at the same time it’s very hard for me to claim that ideology–it’s always shifting or I’m always trying to find what those terms are." ([],Leah King-Smith, Liminal Interstices: The crevice in ambiguous space and Beyond Capture; QUT Art Museum, Brisbane, February 17-May 8)

T. Dave "The common cold and influenza decimated the Kooris. Venereal disease caused the birthrate to plummet. In the entire Port Phillip District (Victoria) a Koori population in the range 8,000 to 15,000 in 1835 fell to around 5,000 by 1850, that is by between one-third and two-thirds. The two major tribes in the Melbourne region had numbered around 300 in 1835; by 1853 there were a mere thirty-three remaining. There had been only twenty-eight births in over twenty years. Disease was not entirely to blame." (Lack. 1991, p19). Leah has a black Aboriginal mother and a white Australian father, and whilst she feels her Aboriginality is a large contributing factor to her creative motivation, her cultural blend has fostered human principles of resolution and mediation. Most of Leah’s work is essentially about coming to terms with struggle, either on the cultural level or the artistic. ([]) W. Tom

Z. Kingsley There is diversity of lifestyles amongst Indigenous communities today. Kinship ties are integral to Koori identity and lifestyles. A sense of belonging to 'a place' is an important feature of Koori identity, although this has been impeded by the dislocation suffered by Indigenous people. Members of regional populations are knitted together by reciprocal relationships of hospitality and help and by lifelong bonds of affection, duty and loyalty to relatives and friends. []