Unfinished Camp

What is the future of art in a decentralised world?

Shown online in Gallery 5, 24 Sep – 19 Dec 2021

We commissioned three young artists to answer that question as part of a new global initiative, Unfinished Camp. Run in conjunction with leading arts organisations around the world, Unfinished Camp was presented as part of Unfinished Live at The Shed, New York. Australian artists Moorina Bonini, Kalanjay Dhir and Jazz Money share their works created for Unfinished Camp here on Gallery 5, each film a look into what the artists consider necessary to create a more equitable future. They joined a global network of 24 other young creative thinkers collectively responding to this idea, and presented at Unfinished Live at House of Electronic Arts, Basel on September 23, and The Shed, New York on September 24.

Artists | Works | About Unfinished Live

Gowidja (After)

Moorina Bonini

The western value system continues to govern Indigenous peoples, our knowledge and country in Australia. A decentralised world can only exist in conjunction with the past and present time. 

Gowidja (After) undertakes a critical evaluation of centralised operational systems such as the governance and control of our cultural material in museums, galleries and collections, land management and extractive practices. Gowidja (After) presents a near and Indigenous-led future where all centralised governance and power has been dispersed outwards amongst Indigenous people and communities. In this future we have ownership of our cultural materials and objects, autonomy over our representation and agency to achieve our self-determinism. 

Stream

Kalanjay Dhir

Stream is a video work and thought experiment in three parts.

Part One is centred around a character named Bagong, who is derived from Javanese shadow puppetry known as Wayang. Presented as a digitally rendered avatar, Bagong is introduced to us in free fall, in the artist’s neighbourhood of Parramatta (Dharug country, Sydney).

Part Two sees Bagong land in Dhir’s family home, and share a papaya with his mother, Sri.

Part Three takes on the format of a Twitch stream hosted by Bagong as a VTuber (virtual streamer). Bouncing between gaming worlds, Bagong and his friends muse on trust, cryptography and futures.

Credits

Original Soundtrack by Neil Cabatingan (Kuya Neil) MUA by Nandini Dhir
Mother played by Sri W. Dhir
Additional footage and production by Chi Tran
Heinzbigred voiced by Max Wee
Zaccyboy101 voiced by Zachary Gough

RTX render by @scarpvfx
Additional gameplay footage of ‘Sonata in b minor for unity’ by Akil Ahamat

Made using: Adobe Suite, Discord, VRoid Studio, VSeeFace, VDraw, OBS Studio, No Man Sky, Overwatch, NoClip.Website, Splice, Unity, Mixamo, YouTube

Stream was made on the unceded land, water and skies of the Dharug peoples.

We have stories for all the dark spaces inbetween

Jazz Money

We have stories for all the dark spaces inbetween considers the interrelation of data networks and Indigenous ways of knowing land and relation. The title comes comes from Aboriginal astronomy, where both the darkness and light of the night sky tell stories and inform our world. The expression invites us to consider networks of care, and how all things, not just the visible, need to be known and maintained to sustain us all.

These complex data networks are reflected in the management of communities and the land for which they are relation. Embedded within these knowledges are systems of care that reveal solutions to many of the worlds most urgent problems. These ancient data systems that have been perfected over millennia give a glimpse of the ways that Indigenous knowledges globally can lead a radical rethinking of responsibility and relation centred on sovereignty, respect and interconnection.

Indigenous knowledge systems on the continent now referred to as 'Australia' have been maintained through oral histories that trace back to the time when the world began, the oldest living continuous culture in the world that has been maintained through story, song, ceremony, land and people for over 100,000 years. Yet these systems of care have been violently degraded and disrespected in the centuries since colonial invasion brought capitalism and exploitation to our shores. Decentralising from the colonial violence wrought upon the land is the only way to restore our world.