Changemaker - Stephen Gilchrist

Associate Lecturer, Art History and Film Studies, The University of Sydney

About Stephen

Stephen GilchristStephen Gilchrist is from the Yamatji people of the Inggarda language group of northwest Western Australia. He is a writer, lecturer and curator and has worked with the Indigenous collections of the National Gallery of Australia, the British Museum, the National Gallery of Victoria and the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, USA. In 2001, he obtained his Bachelor of Arts with Honours from UWA and has an MA from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. He is an associate lecturer of Indigenous Art in the Art History and Film Studies department at the University of Sydney, where he is currently pursuing a PhD.

On art and early influences

My mum was responsible for introducing art to me and my dad gave me a lot of books which fuelled my love for writing. In the final year of my degree, I started to panic about how I was going to channel these interests into a job. I remember thinking about being a museum curator in high school, but I had never met a curator and wasn’t really sure what one did. Gabrielle Garratt from the School of Indigenous Studies at UWA suggested I look into the BA practicum that was offered at the time and it quite literally changed my life. With another UWA student, I applied for a six-month internship at the Art Gallery of Western Australia and we had the chance to work with the esteemed Indigenous curator, Brenda L Croft, who was very generous in sharing her knowledge and her contacts with us.

The internship made me think that being a curator could give me the creative and intellectual outlet for all that I had studied and learned from the incredible scholars during my undergraduate career. I remember being on a tour with Brenda, who was guiding some Indigenous students around an Indigenous photography exhibition, and it was during that tour, that I realised that this was what I wanted to do. Indigenous Art intersected with many of the issues that I was interested in - namely social history, political ecology, representation and cultural/national identities. Brenda encouraged me to develop my skills and to get as much experience in the art world and with some persistence, patience and a few missteps, I was fortunate enough to obtain a traineeship at the National Gallery of Australia several years later.

Connection with UWA

One of the best memories of UWA is definitely the support and friendships that I developed at Shenton House (School of Indigenous Studies). Just walking into the space took the edge of the stress, sleeplessness and general anxiety of university life. Whatever problems you had, someone would offer a friendly smile, a solution or at the very least a cup of tea. Some of the staff would even offer their computers when there were none available in the lab!

I was also a campus guide so I spent a lot of time taking prospective students from all over the State around the beautiful grounds of UWA. For me, it was a great way to learn and share the history of UWA and the programs it offered, and it was lovely to see students who were excited about the possibility of a tertiary education or were at least beginning to think about it seriously after the tour. I hope that a university degree remains possible for those who choose to pursue one, as these potential students are still WA’s most important untapped resource

Teaching with a passion

Although there is a significant educational component to curatorial work, I have only been teaching formally for the last couple of years. Teaching makes me reflect on the training I received and the culture of compassionate critique that many of my lecturers modelled in class. I think what was instilled in me at UWA was that caring deeply was not an indulgence but a necessity. I had lecturers who were born to teach and who were passionate about their research and that was always inspiring.

Indigenous Art matters to me because I don’t think you can fully relate to this place unless you understand and respect the many histories and philosophies of Indigenous people. Indigenous people have a lot to teach Australians and visitors about living ethical lifeways and, for those who want to find them, art is but one way to do so. Art tells the story of this place, and, in unique and complex ways, we are all the story of this place.

Curatorial work overseas

I’ve curated a few exhibitions in the USA and all of them have been at university or college art museums, which seems to suggest that these are the spaces that are prepared to grapple with Indigenous art in all its complexity. I’m currently curating an exhibition called Everywhen: The Eternal Present in Indigenous Art from Australia, which will open at Harvard Art Museums in February 2016. I’m really interested to see how people who have never encountered Indigenous Art before receive the exhibition.

The exhibition explores the ways in which time is folded into Indigenous artistic, social, cultural, historical, ecological and philosophical life. Indigenous conceptions of time rely on active encounters with both the ancestral and natural worlds, and these dynamic relationships find expression in artistic production. I love introducing people to Indigenous Art, but I am also hopeful that American audiences will make the historical, cultural, and philosophical connections to Indigenous peoples of the Americas.