Artists in Residence

Title: Blakbird series (12) Medium: digital photography and text Date : 2013 Dimensions: 77cm x 57cm Collection category: photography

Artist in Residence program, funded by former Board of Trustees member, Lesley Bryant.

It was alumna and former member of the Board of Trustees, Leslie Bryant, who funded the 2013 Artist in Residence, Krishna Nahow. Nahow is of Islander descent and her work is inspired by her Vanuatu heritage and the legacy of South Sea Islander slavery in colonial Australia. Nahow created a series of 12 digital prints on watercolour paper using imagery of family who were brought to Queensland under what is known as the “blackbirding” trade to provide labour particularly on sugar cane farms . The imagery is often accompanied by text. These works are part of her ongoing series which she entitles “Blakbird”, an important telling of this history which saw many of her maternal relatives taken to areas around Bowen and Aire in North Queensland to work the sugar plantations. Her works have an ethereal quality as though the people and their history have been blurred and partially erased by time.

Artists in Residence | Page 8