Tony Albert on the overlap between art and activism

After the horrific bushfire season of 2019-20, conceptual artist Tony Albert invited audiences to rejuvenate the landscape differently. One that considered the effects of colonisation in both the environment and for those who had lived here for thousands of years. Titled ‘Healing Land, Remembering Country’, it was commissioned for the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, inside a greenhouse on Cockatoo Island (a former prison). Albert asked audiences to write an alternative narrative for children and young people who are incarcerated in Australia onto paper filled with Kangaroo grass seeds, before being planted back into the earth as a healing, holistic rejuvenation project.

Tony Albert (Meanjin) in conversation with Emma-Kate Wilson (Gumbaynggirr Country).

Artist, Tony Albert. Photo: Mark Porkorny.

Where do you belong?

I’d like to think I belong wherever it is that I'm sitting, with the greatest respect to all those people around me. My family comes from Far North Queensland, and I belong to three different Indigenous language groups, Girramay, Yidinji and Kuku-Yalanji. It's very much a place grounded in Country that I feel very privileged to feel a greater sense of belonging in what that term means.

 
How does your art and activism overlap?

It does overlap, but also it is a continuum of a parallel or a tangent, and they feed intrinsically into one another. I think that’s what it is for society and our community as well. But I don't think enough people realise our life is embedded on Country. And it's interesting, your question about belonging – we look so much at land in terms of ownership rather than belonging. We have to extinguish that idea, I think, to really get to the core and crux of what we need to look after and what are the fundamental values of us as humans. Not just First Nations people – all people. We share this commonality. The ground which we sit on, and we walk on. Where we live.

I felt like a very forward-thinking environmentalist, but through Groundswell, there was way more that I learned and knew that I should be doing and advocating for and spreading that message. It just grounded a lot more within me, that I'm in the position to be able to with the opportunities I have.

Do you have a favourite example of this?

The work for the 22nd Biennale of Sydney: NIRIN in 2020, titled Healing Land, Remembering Country, enabled planted memories on seeded paper. It reflected on the rejuvenation of land, not just in the healing through landscaping, but through embedding the ground with positivity and healing. The nature of which colonisation has affected us as people has affected the land in a similar way. It's not just about replanting and revegetation but healing the land holistically. 

Tony Albert, Healing Land, Remembering Country, 2020. Installation view for the 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020), Cockatoo Island. Photo courtesy the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney.

Your work oscillates between being a bit confronting but then also a little absurd. And I just wondered how you balance such varied mediums — from installations in the garden, college to photo media and performance?

I feel so fortunate that I'm following on from such great leaders who had to be assertive. They had to pack a punch, to fight for a voice. That existence and following in their footsteps, in their shadows, gives me a bit of freedom to explore. To actually be funny, to look at other ways of introducing these topics into the vernacular without having to fight my way into being included. It gave me the freedom to be able to get work in the way I do and to be able to create conversations through planting a seed or the opportunity for people to look at the work objectively and come to conclusions themselves. I don't have to knock people over the head to get the point across. I think that's the advantage of those who have come before me; all the work they've done, and then to share and spread the message within my own work.

There are so many ways to be an activist, to make an impact. Why is art the way for you?

I think there was a natural talent for working with materials or being inquisitive about art, being able to draw, and being able to study. But then I felt a sense of responsibility that my work could be a vessel for telling these stories. That's what's been a driving factor and motivator for me and getting to work with amazing people and collaborate. Using visual art is my navigational tool.

What gives you hope?

My hope is carried by a very simple belief that I think art has the power to change the world. But I've never felt a more urgent or critical situation than we are in now with climate change. My hope is for collective strength. And when we all band together, we have the power to move mountains. I hope that the urgency of what needs to be done to change the situation we're in comes to the forefront, and that we have the capacity to do that.

My favourite saying from Clare [Ainsworth Herschell, Groundswell co-founder] is that we don't need a few people doing zero emissions perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly. I'm such a proud and keen ambassador for Groundswell. There is such a belief in a holistic outlook, something very philosophical about it. I feel so fortunate to be a member; wherever we members come from, there’s an underlying thread or commonality between us all. I love that so much.