Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following article contains references to people who have died.
We wouldn’t say from the sublime to the ridiculous, but these new documentaries about two of Australia’s most prominent visual artists are fabulous reminders of the extraordinary breadth of talent and practice we have in this country.
Emily: I Am Kam
Australia’s highest selling female artist, the Anmatyerr Elder Emily Kam Kngwarray is the subject of writer/director Danielle MacLean’s affectionate, well researched and very informative documentary, which recounts her history and lasting impact.
As a framing device, it revolves around the staging of a major retrospective exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, put together with the collaboration of a number of Kngwarray’s descendants, who also revive awely ceremonies as they remember her and her influence.
Watching the women appraise the works and explain images contained within them, it becomes clear to non-Indigenous eyes that what may seem to be abstract art is actually anything but.
While Kngwarray’s name and work will be familiar to so many, what a joy it is to see not just the many photographs of how much actual footage of her at work exists, let alone going about her life in other ways, hunting, organising and painting bodies for ceremonies.
Delving into her legacy and her practice, the film features such talking heads as the co-curators of the Emily Kam Kngwarray NGA exhibition – Hetti Perkins(Arrernte and Kalkadoon) and Kelli Cole (Warumungu and Luritja), while people like Dr Jennifer Green, a linguist and the founder of the Utopia Women’s Literacy, Art and Craft Programs, and Julia Murray, founding coordinator of the Utopia Women’s Batik Program, speak of their long association with the artist and the Utopia Art Centre.
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As a record and exploration of this monumental artist, Emily: I Am Kam is riveting viewing and a terrific contribution to the growing library of Australian artists on film.
Following screenings at last month’s Sydney Film Festival, Emily: I Am Kam will premiere on National Indigenous Television (NITV) and SBS On Demand on 9 July, with an encore on SBS on 12 July.
Stelarc Suspending Disbelief
If viewers can’t get quite close enough to the screen to revel in the beautiful painted images from Emily Kam Kngwarray, they may find the opposite is true when sitting down to watch this gripping documentary about arguably Australia’s most notable, if not notorious, performance artist. Indeed, you may well be inclined to watch much of the footage of Stelarc’s infamous flesh hook suspensions through your fingers.
Then, of course, there are all the body modifications projects – the ear surgically attached to his arm, the robotic third arm, the walking machine and all of the other inventions and experimentations he has created or performed over the decades in his quest to extend the capabilities of the human body.
And for those able to quell the qualms and fixate instead on what he has to say, and his unique and 50-year plus practice will find much to fascinate and consider. Like Kngwarray, this is an arts career that has been well documented and filmed over time, with filmmakers Richard Moore and John Doggett-Williams doing an excellent job of collating the material and shaping it to let Stelarc tell his own story his own way.
Particularly interesting is the extract of the 2011 conversation between Stelarc and Liz Carr, the actor and comedian with arthrogryposis multiplex congenita who has used a wheelchair since her teens. Stelarc’s suggestion that he shares common ground with people with disability is certainly an interesting viewpoint.
Finally, the documentary is almost as interesting for what it leaves out as for what it keeps in. First there’s the shot of Moore himself preparing to insert a flesh hook, with the camera cutting away before the skin is pierced. Is he just teasing or did he chicken out?
And then, it’s impossible to talk about any footage of Stelarc without commenting on that remarkable cartoon villain laugh of his – perhaps the most unusual one outside of Jimmy Carr. Liz Carr mentions it – how could she not – and as viewers we really want to know: how did that develop? Was he born with it or was it just an evolving response to the ever wackier world in which he operates?
Stelarc Suspending Disbelief had its world premiere at the Castlemaine Documentary Festival last week and will now have screenings at Perth’s Revelation Film Festival (9 and 11 July) before a launch at Melbourne’s Cinema Nova in Carlton at 3.30pm on Sunday 13 July, followed by a Q+A. Further screenings across the country are yet to be announced.
