Exhibitions
taypani milaythina-tu: Return to Country | Vicki West
Biography
Vicki West is a proud pakana artist of the Trawlwoolway people from the North East coast region. She undertook a bridging course in art at riawunna Centre for Aboriginal Education in Launceston in the early 1990s, and completed her Bachelor Fine Arts in 1999, BFA First Class Honours in 2001 and Masters in 2008 (all University of Tasmania, School of Visual and Performing Arts).
Vicki has maintained a strong local, national and more recently international exhibition record since entering the field – including solo exhibitions in Adelaide, Launceston and Melbourne, numerous national touring exhibitions including Defying Empire (2017) String Theory (2013), Menagerie (2009), tayenebe (2009), Woven Forms (2005), Native Title Business (2002) and The One Tree Project (2001). She has also exhibited in many group exhibitions throughout Australia, and is represented in many collections of major institutions including St Kilda City Council, St Kilda, VIC; Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney, NSW; Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, TAS; Australian National Museum, Canberra, ACT; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, ACT; Campbelltown City Bicentennial Art Gallery, Campbelltown, NSW; Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney, NSW; the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, NT; and the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, ACT.
She has undertaken numerous public art installations including for Junction Festival/Streets Alive 2010 and 2012, Falls Festival Marion Bay 2010, 2011 and 2012, and Taronga Zoo, NSW, 2012.
Vicki was a representative for Australia at the Festival of Pacific Arts in 2012, and was a featured artist in the 2013 series of Colour Theory with Richard Bell on NITV.
Vicki has worked extensively at the community level, presenting workshops and undertaking projects through schools, museums and at festivals and conferences, both within Tasmania and nationally. She is currently the Children’s Arts and Culture facilitator for meenah neenah, an Aboriginal Arts Youth program in Launceston, and the Aboriginal Learning facilitator for the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery.
Vicki’s arts practice includes large-scale installations incorporating multiple elements, smaller scale sculptural works, jewellery, textiles, painting and new media. She draws on traditional Tasmanian Aboriginal cultural practices and materials to create contemporary artworks that explore and celebrate cultural survival in the face of continuing colonial myths of the extinction of her people. In her own words, “we are still here”.
Artist statement
milaythina kanaplila (country sing and dance), 2022
Technical Producer: Darryl Rogers
This work is inspired by my emotional, physical and spiritual response when viewing some of our cultural material (stone tools) locked away in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.
I was overwhelmed to say the least at the volume of Ancestral tools locked up in dark, depressing and cold cupboards. I felt a deep sense of sadness for these beautiful cultural artefacts. Removed from their Country, taken to a foreign place, incarcerated, never to return to their Country – their story is very similar to many Ancestral peoples.
These tools lived in Country, are Country, and are intrinsic to our survival for thousands of generations. Our Ancestral people would have had a very intimate connection to these tools. They were and still are Cultural companions, part of the everyday.
The making of these tools is a culturally and spiritually significant practice that continues today. Through their deep connection and understanding of Country, our people quarried different tools from differing rock to create highly effective implements for cutting and scraping, and to create other tools such as spears, waddies and throwing sticks to ensure cultural survival.
I have selected nine tools from the nine nations within lutruwita to acknowledge and represent them. I wanted to give life back to them, to give them a place and a space to sing, dance and tell their stories to the viewers.
To bring life to this body of work I employed a technical producer, a new way of working. I believe that I have created a significant installation honouring our makers past, present and future.