Stop(the)Gap/Mind(the)Gap: International Indigenous art in motion: screening and panel discussion provided an opportunity for the public to engage with the artists, curators, artworks and issues of the major Adelaide-based international Indigenous moving image project Stop(the)Gap/Mind(the)Gap: International Indigenous art in motion. Speaking at the event was Brenda L Croft (AU), Alan Michelson (US), Kathleen Ash-Milby (US), Megan Tamati-Quennell (NZ) and r e a (AU).

Stop(the)Gap/Mind(the)Gap presents 20 artists from four countries (Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Canada and the USA) through a two-part program, across multiple contemporary and historical sites and venues throughout the Adelaide CBD and Port Adelaide. Stop(the)Gap was staged from 23 February – 23 April, 2011 at the Samstag Museum and Hart's Mill, Port Adelaide, with works by Lisa Reihana and Nova Paul from Aotearoa/New Zealand; Warwick Thornton, r e a and Genevieve Grieves from Australia; Dana Claxton and Rebecca Belmore from Canada; and Alan Michelson from the United States. Mind(the) Gap was held at SASA Gallery, AEAF/Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute and Pilgrim Church/Tardanyangga/Victoria Square in November – December 2011, with works by Parekohai Whakamoe, John Miller and Nathan Pohio from Aotearoa/New Zealand; Richard Bell and Christian Thompson from Australia; Kent Monkman, Thirza Cuthand and Cheryl L'Hirondelle from Canada; and Erica Lord, Jason Lujan, Nicholas Galanin and James Luna from the United States.

Curator Brenda L Croft of the Gurindji/Malgnin/ Mudpurra peoples developed this exhibition for the BigPond Adelaide Film Festival in partnership with the Anne and Gordon Samstag Museum of Art.

This Sydney-based event offered the chance to see works by four of the participating artists – Nova Paul (Aotearoa/New Zealand), Rebecca Belmore (Canada), Alan Michelson (USA), and r e a (Australia) – and to hear from the project's curator Brenda L Croft, two of her international curatorial advisors Kathleen Ash-Milby (USA), Associate Curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), New York, and Megan Tamati-Quennell (Aotearoa/NZ), Curator, Contemporary Maori and Indigenous Art, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington NZ; and two of the participating artists— Alan Michelson, who is a New York City-based Mohawk member of Six Nations of the Grand River (Haudenosaunee or Iroquois) and r e a, who is of the Gamilaraay people, from the Warrumbungles Region, Central West NSW.

Screening

The following four works were introduced and screened (in excerpted form):

  • Aotearoa/New Zealand: Nova Paul, This is Not Dying, 2010
  • Australia: r e a, PolesApart – Tracking, 2011
  • Canada: Rebecca Belmore, The Named and the Unnamed, 2002
  • USA: Alan Michelson, TwoRow II, 2005

Panel discussion

Following the screening there was a "Q & A" style panel discussion with the featured artists and curators.

This event was co-presented by the Centre for Contemporary Art and Politics at the UNSW National Institute for Experimental Arts and the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, in conjunction with Stop(the)Gap: International Indigenous art in motion, a major project of the BigPond Adelaide Film Festival in partnership with the Anne and Gordon Samstag Museum of Art.