Megan Cope's 'Blaktism' video wins top indigenous art award.
‘Blaktised’ artist wins major prize.
Victoria Laurie. The Australian. 6 July 2015.
A provocative and ironically amusing video work about gaining a certificate of Aboriginality has become the first video installation to win Australia’s richest indigenous art prize. Megan Cope, a Noonuccal-Ngugi artist from Stradbroke Island, has won the prestigious $50,000 Western Australian Indigenous Art Award with her eight-minute work The Blaktism.
Western Australian Indigenous Art Award: Megan Cope video installation wins.
Victoria Laurie. The Australian. 3 July 2015.
The prestigious $50,000 Western Australian Indigenous Art Award has been won for the first time by a video installation.
Brisbane-born Megan Cope’s video work, The Blaktism 2014, was announced tonight as the winner of Australia’s richest indigenous art prize, which is awarded every two years at the Art Gallery of Western Australia.
The judges described it as “a theatrical and humorous insight into the complexities of Indigenous identity, notions of citizenship and Australian stereotypes through her imagined ‘blaktism’.” They said the work “challenges a stereotypical view of Indigenous culture and a broader Australian tribalism of drinking and party culture.”
The judges felt that it was a sophisticated work with “a strong social and political resonance conveyed … through its pop culture energy.