Artist Megan Cope takes a fresh look at the question of identity.
Kylie Northover. The Age. April 29 2014.
When indigenous artist Megan Cope wanted to apply for an overseas residency a couple of years ago, she was told that to receive the funding she'd need to prove her ''credentials'' as an indigenous person by supplying a certificate of Aboriginality, a legal document that must be approved by indigenous elders and the Australian law courts.
Cope, a descendant from the Quandamooka region of Stradbroke Island, wasn't surprised - but she wasn't prepared for the feelings it stirred in her.
''My whole life I've been meaning to get it because you know, I've got blue eyes and everybody's always told me I don't look Aboriginal, but at the same time I've never needed it because I've always been Aboriginal and knocked around with other Aboriginal people in the arts, at university, when I go home to my family,'' she says. ''I've always participated in the community and through that, other blackfellas know who I am because they know my family and … you can't just 'claim' it. It's not that simple.''
But for many situations - grant funding, certain jobs, university places and the like - proof of Aboriginal heritage is necessary.
''I could have applied for the residency as a non-Aboriginal person but I'm proud of my identity, so everything I produce as an artist I wish to include that unique perspective … and also contribute to successful cultural production from that position,'' says Melbourne-based Cope.
Obtaining the paperwork and relevant approval from her elders was easy enough for Cope, but the process cast something of a doubt in her mind. She says it was all ''very standard and normal'' but as she was discussing the practicalities involved, the feelings dawned on her, and she began to ponder if she was ''Aboriginal enough'', particularly as she's a ''fair-skinned'' Aborigine.
''I suddenly started thinking about it - about legally certified things and I got nervous. I guess all the things that people had said to me that doubt my Aboriginality flooded back in that moment and I said to [the elder], 'Do you reckon I'll get it?' She laughed at me 'Yeah bub, of course - whaddya mean?'
''But the way it made me felt was very unexpected. The whole thing was really strange,'' says Cope. ''I wasn't expecting that it would affect me emotionally like that, or that I would suddenly doubt everything that I know and feel so secure in. That's why it's really frustrating when people like Andrew Bolt go on about everyone 'becoming Aboriginal' - it's not really that easy and not like that. You do actually need a legal document that proves your identity.''
Cope has created a video artwork in response to the experience for the Next Wave Festival's Blak Wave stream. Normally a painter, Cope felt the critique she wanted to create couldn't be conveyed in her usual medium, so with guidance from her mentor, artist Richard Bell, she decided on a video work.
''This is something that I want to reach a greater audience and I want to talk about it in a medium that's accessible to lots of people,'' she says.
The result is The Blacktism, a seven-minute satirical video work, in which Cope herself takes part in a baptism-style ceremony to grant her ''authenticity, power, inclusion and success''. The work features seven ''Australian archetypes'' performing the ceremony in which Cope is ''blacked up'' and takes part in a cultural assimilation dance party in which Australians are ''liberated, celebrated equally and transgressively reborn''. It's funny, but also a critique of the topical debate on assimilation and indigenous representation in our culture.
''I hope it's funny,'' says Cope. ''I'm in a group with Richard Bell called ProppaNOW, so I was inspired by his approach to sensitive issues and how he employs humour. It's highlighting the absurdity of the obsession with authenticity.''
Cope says that while she can understand some of the rationale behind the certificate - ''it came about because there were a few cases where white people were making Aboriginal art and claiming to be Aboriginal when they weren't, so it's important that the Aboriginal community issues these documents'' - she still felt the documentation inspires feelings of not being ''adequate'' or ''authentic''. And for Aborigines whose background is from the stolen generations, it's something they can't necessarily ''prove'', no matter how dark skinned they are.
''In the arts there is this assumption that Aboriginal people are getting all this attention and more funding than what's available for non-indigenous artists. I guess Aboriginal people need to always have a conversation about who we are and where we're going and what's important to us, what kind of works we're going to make and constantly challenge the colonial framework.''
Seeing herself in The Blacktism as darker skinned, says Cope, was also something of a revelation. ''When you're met with people constantly negating your identity and saying 'but you've got blue eyes', or 'but your skin's this colour', 'maybe you're Spanish or Greek' - anything but what I say I am, obviously in the back of my mind I kind of do think 'maybe if I had the skin of my cousins and the brown eyes and all that, maybe if I did look more like them, this would be so much easier' and I could just go ahead with so much more confidence,'' she says. ''But the funny thing was, when I saw myself that nice brown colour with the brown eyes … it scared the hell out of me - it was such a strange sight!''
Megan Cope's The Blacktism is at Screen Space, 30 Guildford Lane, May 2-14 as part of Next Wave.