Jason Wing BIRIPI

And Cantonese

Jason Wing questions our understanding of history and of our current socio-political reality. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. Significant solo exhibitions include Battleground, Artereal, Mine, Museum of Modern Art, Tasmania, Australia: Antipodean Stories, Padiglione d’Arte Contomporanea, Milan, Italy, Defying Empire: 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and Making Change, National Art Museum of China, Beijing.

Selected group exhibitions include Wondermountain, Penrith Regional Gallery and the Lewers Bequest, Emu Plains, The Native Institute, Blacktown Arts Centre, Blacktown, Making Change, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, Cold Eels and Distant Thoughts, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, Bungaree: The First Australian, Mosman Art Gallery, Mosman, and Made in China Australia, Salamanca Art Centre, Hobart.

Wing has undertaken numerous public artworks and commissions spanning 13 years. Several of which include FireSticks, City of Parramatta, ART & About Sydney, City of Sydney, Gadigal Land, Australian Design Centre, Darlinghurst, Gadigal Land, Australian Design Centre, Darlinghurst and The Serpent, Canada Bay Council. Over the last twenty years, Wing has completed residences at places which include The Glasshouse Regional Gallery, Port Macquarie, International studio & curatorial programs in Brooklyn, New York, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China, Kluge-Ruhe Museum, Virginia, USA, Xucun Art Commune, Heshun County, Shanxi Province, China and OZASIA, Adelaide Festival Centre, Adelaide.

In 2012 he won the Parliament of NSW Aboriginal Art Prize for his provocative work Australia was Stolen by Armed Robbery. Wing’s work is held in both private and public collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Artbank, Sydney; Blacktown Council, Blacktown; and the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, Virginia, USA. Wing’s first monograph was published by Artspace 2014.

Endeavour to improve our conditions, 2022

Steel, freshwater, saltwater, ink marker Collection of the artist

My mixed media installation speaks to the frustrations regarding the lack of progress in human rights for Aboriginal people.

Aboriginal people are and have been the most oppressed people per capita worldwide. We are experiencing the worst treatment via colonial systemic control to date. Aboriginal people have mastered the Western language, media, and law, despite the evermoving goal posts.

My installation references Joe Anderson aka King Burraga’s eloquent and filmed protest, demanding human rights (1933).

Before the white man set foot in Australia, my Ancestors, had kings in their own right, and I; Aboriginal King Burraga, am a direct descendant of the royal line …

The Black man sticks to his brothers and always keeps their rules, which were laid down before the white man set foot upon these shores. One of the greatest laws among the Aboriginals was to love one another, and he always kept to this law. Where will you find a white man or a white woman today that will say I love my neighbour? It quite amuses me to hear people say they don’t like the Black man ... but he’s damn glad to live in a Black man’s country all the same!

I’m calling a corroboree of all the natives of New South Wales to send a petition to the King in an endeavour to improve our conditions.

All the Black man wants is representation in parliament. There is also plenty of fish in the river for us all, and land to grow all we want.

One hundred and fifty years ago the Aboriginals owned Australia and today he demands more than the white man’s charity. He wants the right to live!

King Burraga – Joe Anderson, Salt Pan Creek, 1933.

These desperate cries of the past still echo today with little to no actual change to systemic racism, control, and the unjust murders of our people.

Aboriginal people cannot afford to play the waiting game and the colonial project understands and exploits this fact. Whilst we chase the clock back 250 years plus, the colonial project ignores, waits, and infers change.

When protests over time do not significantly improve Aboriginal conditions and are largely symbolic, what needs to happen next?

Endeavour to improve our conditions, 2022 (detail)

Steel, freshwater, saltwater, ink marker Collection of the artist