Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis
(Dis)connected to Country
01.03.2024 — 31.01.2024
Exhibition opening: Friday 1st March, 2024
Continues until Sunday 24th March, 2024
Mapping the intertwined natures of self and Country.
Australia has a complex history tainted with colonialism, the mass genocide of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and forced assimilation into the settler colony. The many products of colonialism are still prevalent and thriving today.
(Dis)connected to Country maps the intersections of place, identity, and family, and the way that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have inextricable connection to the land, as Country and self are intertwined and inseparable. Working with oral histories, the project reflects on the traumatic history of Australia with specific focus on Pitta Pitta Country and the removal of Romanis’ great-grandmother in the early 1900s during the Stolen Generations.
This show aims to disrupt and subvert colonial approaches to image-making and mapping systems, highlighting the omission of significant Indigenous Knowledges. The work critically analyses archive, representation, and new technology, and grapples with the idea that photographs have their own agency. (Dis)connected to Country is a project of revival, healing and mapping back to Pitta Pitta Country.
Biography:
Born 1998, Geelong, Australia
Lives and works Naarm/Melbourne, Australia
Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis is a proud Pitta Pitta woman, emerging artist, researcher and curator based on Kulin Land. After completing an Honours in Photography degree at RMIT in 2020, she commenced a PhD at Monash in 2021 through the Wominjeka Djeembana Research Lab. Her work is inextricably intertwined with her identity as a Pitta Pitta woman and explores the complexities of her lived experience and the continuing negative impacts of colonisation in what is now known as Australia.
