APRON-SORROW / SOVEREIGN-TEA

Installation and public program
Presented by Tarnanthi and Vitalstatistix

she lingers in archives / her trace is my memory / we labour dig sweat blister imagine / know them more intimately / so much work to be done to clean up this colonial mess.

APRON-SORROW / SOVEREIGN-TEA is an installation and public program evoking an embodied reckoning with Aboriginal women’s domestic labour and servitude, for premiere at the Waterside Workers Hall. The work explores the complexity of women’s experiences and survival strategies; intergenerational stories that span loss, love, sorrow, solidarity, resistance and refusal.

Narungga artist, poet and academic Dr Natalie Harkin is drawing from both oral history and the State’s official record to engage with and creatively transform the colonial archive, contributing new understandings to Aboriginal women’s labour histories in South Australia. APRON-SORROW / SOVEREIGN-TEA is the culmination of this significant process of trace and return through shadows, spectres and paper trails.

Drawing on her practice of archival-poetics informed by blood-memory, haunting and grandmother stories, Natalie will work with collaborators such as Unbound Collective and Aboriginal women in South Australia who share stories, to make this evocative, multidisciplinary installation. The presentation will also include commissioned performance and a talk about domestic labour and stolen wages.

Thur – Fri, 2 – 7pm
Sat – Sun, 11am – 4pm

No booking is required to visit the exhibition.