The Blaktism, 2014
(Video still)
HD video with sound, 8 minutes 4 seconds.
Courtesy the Artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane.
The Blaktism
What if racism was cool and sexy and something everyone promoted on facebook and was marketed on slurpee packing from the local 7/11 or feted through commercial television and radio streams?
The Blaktism, a new video work by Megan Cope, directed and produced by Suzanne Howard, is a high-energy performance and ritual that sees a young female “White Aborigine” undertake a sacred ceremony in which she receives the rite of authenticity validated by cultural authorities ever present in the Australian cultural landscape.
The sacred ceremony itself, too mystical to discuss in media ephemera, results in a satirical cultural assimilation dance party whereby all Australians are liberated, celebrated equally and transgressively renewed through physical and gestural adjustments.
The Blaktism seeks to challenge audience members with subterranean racism and its relationship within popular culture. It highlights the absurd nature of racial classification and disdain for cultural self-determination in 21st century Australia. This seven-minute pop video will interrogate notions of identity, power and Australian social history.
EXHIBITION HISTORY
2021, Recent Acquisitions, Redland Art Gallery, QLD
2020 Torrent Bloom, Firstdraft, Sydney
2020 Rite of Passage, Queensland University of Technology Art Museum
2018 EX-EMBASSY, as part of Berlin's Project Space Festival
2015 This Is No Fantasy, Melbourne
2015 Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney
2014 Next Wave Festival, Screenspace, Melbourne
COLLECTIONS
National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Bundoora Homestead Art Centre, Artbank, Redland Art Gallery, QLD.
AWARDS
Winner: 2015 Western Australian Indigenous Art Award
The Blaktism 2014, screening at EX-EMBASSY, as part of Berlin_s Project Space Festival 2018. Photo by Joanna Kosowska