{"pk":57930,"title":"nothing important happened today: An Interview with Vernon Ah Kee","subtitle":null,"abstract":"This is an edited transcript of an interview with Vernon Ah Kee conducted by Sophie McIntyre in which the artist discusses his 2021 exhibition \nnothing important happened today\n, held at the Spring Hill Reservoir in Brisbane, Australia. The discussion explores the history of the site, \nto \nwhich several of Ah Kee’s works in the exhibition responded,\n \nand\n \nbroader national and global issues relating to colonisation and sovereignty. \n The conversation also touches on ongoing themes within \nAh Kee’s practice\n, such as race relations and the politics of denial in Australian society. \nAh Kee details the methodologies used to create his artworks—which range from videos to large-scale drawings to installations—with McIntyre observing in them the relationship between beauty and violence. Ah Kee ruminates on the role of art in society, particularly in Australia, where there remains a significant divide between the experiences of First Nations and non-Indigenous peoples, and our perspectives on history and sovereignty, which were major themes explored in the “Grounded in Place” symposium panel of which Ah Kee was a part.","language":"en","license":{"name":"Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives  4.0","short_name":"CC BY-NC-ND 4.0","text":"Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.\n\nNonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.\n\nNoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.\n\nNo additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0"},"keywords":[{"word":"Aboriginal Australian art, colonisation, Australian history, police brutality, sovereignty, First Nations"}],"section":"Articles","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1kt7k6t4","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Vernon","middle_name":"","last_name":"Ah Kee","name_suffix":"","institution":"","department":""},{"first_name":"Sophie","middle_name":"","last_name":"McIntyre","name_suffix":"","institution":"","department":""}],"date_submitted":"2022-12-11T21:45:39Z","date_accepted":"2022-12-11T21:45:39Z","date_published":"2022-01-01T00:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/pacificarts/article/57930/galley/44106/download/"}]}