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Her Image, Her Voice, Her Story

08 March 2018
Culture and Capability
Female Indigenous elder with ceremonial painting on her body by Wayne Quilliam.

Digital storyteller, Wayne Quilliam’s photographic exhibition showcases the achievements, experiences and challenges faced by Australian Indigenous women.

Mali dharngurr, meaning photo reflection of voice/word in Yolngu Mata language focuses on the empowerment of women and girls and increasing progress towards gender equality domestically, regionally and internationally. 

This was portrayed in an interactive exhibition by digital storyteller, Wayne Quilliam showcasing the real life achievements, experiences and challenges faced by Australian Indigenous women.

‘When asked to collect and curate an exhibition on Indigenous women, I was very conscious of philosophising a prescribed culturally gendered perspective. In a paternally evolving culture was it my place to conjure a conceptual environment discussing women’s business?’

‘To offer a prescriptive view I sought the counsel of numerous women with a resounding affirmation my role was to record, document and share their stories’ Wayne said.

Wayne collaborated with Indigenous women throughout the country to record their stories and images in an interactive exhibition that incorporates QR codes to connect interviews and hear the stories of these women, told in their own words and illustrating both their diversity and their strength.

These stories are a contradictory, spiritualised, ideological series of what it is to be an Indigenous women living in a contemporary society. The contradictions that have to be faced on this dimension are often related to the tension between purpose and absurdity, hope and despair, femineity and sisterhood.

The exhibition was showcased at the United Nations in both New York and Geneva in 2017 and can be viewed at Her Image, Her Voice, Her Story.

Find out more

Adjunct Professor Wayne Quilliam has captured significant Indigenous events over the past 20 years including the Apology, 1967 Referendum anniversary, Garma, Laura, Burunga, Dreaming and Yeperenye festivals and thousands of community events throughout the country.

Wayne Quilliam was awarded the 2009 NAIDOC Aboriginal Artist of the Year for his many years of work on the local and International scene working with indigenous groups throughout the world. View more of Wayne Quilliam’s stunning imagery.