Aski Earth Terre Yarta: Education Resource
James Tylor + Meryl McMaster
In the creative project Aski Earth Terre Yarta two Indigenous artists, one Canadian and the other Australian, communicate their connection to Country respectively, and the influences of European colonisation. Over 2018 and 2019, Meryl McMaster and James Tylor were ‘In dialogue’ exchanging their views on their contemporary experience of place, and an arts practice that responds to diverse heritages and histories.
James Tylor (Possum) works explore Australian cultural representations through his multi-cultural heritage, which comprises Nunga (Kaurna), Māori (Te Arawa) and European (English, Scottish, Irish, Dutch, Iberian and Norwegian). Juxtaposing image and object, Tylor re-contextualises the representation of Australian landscape, society and history.
My Nunga Kaurna family has been in the region of South Australia for 65,000–80,000 years and has a rich cultural connection to this land. It is a great honour for me as a Kaurna person to learn, practice and walk in my ancestors’ footsteps. JAMES TYLOR
Meryl McMaster, From a still unquiet place, 2019
Meryl McMaster looks to the past to form a fuller understanding of the present. Her performance-based photography reveals the contradictions and conflicts of her heritage (her father is Plains Cree and her mother British and Dutch). McMaster’s images hold moments of introspection and contemplation that question personal and collective identity.
The images in As immense as the sky collapse time into the present. The stories of kayas (long ago) and the foreboding whispers of the future intertwine my body with the land, in the hope that we all maintain a long-term ecological equilibrium with the world around us. MERYL MCMASTER
Curator
Allison Holland
Exhibition Venues
ACP Project Space Gallery, Sydney, 28 June – 17 August 2019
This exhibition will tour regionally with Country Arts South Australia, 2021-2023
About the Resource
This ‘In dialogue’ project includes poems and songs in Plains Cree (CAN) and Kaurna (AUS), with an introduction in French. This teaching and learning resource has been developed to closely aligned with the Australian Curriculum:
- The Arts: Drama, Media Arts, Music, Visual Arts
- Humanities and Social Science: History, Geography, Civic and Citizenship, ATSI Histories and Culture
- Languages: Indigenous, French
- English: Literature
Images
James Tylor
Detail of Wama, from the Turalayinthi Yarta series, 2017, 2019
Yarlu, from the Turalayinthi Yarta series, 2017, 2019
Courtesy of the artist; Vivien Anderson Gallery, Narrm Melbourne; GAGProjects, Tarntanya Adelaide; McNamara Gallery, Whanganui, Aotearoa New Zealand; and Jarvis Dooney Gallery, Berlin, Germany.
Meryl McMaster
From a still unquiet place, 2019
Bring me to this place, 2019
Courtesy of the artist, Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto, and Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain, Montréal, Canada.
