“More than Just a Game” ACMI “How I see it”

16th Dec 2022 - 19th Feb 2023 Curated by Kate ten Buuren

Opening Dec 16th 2022 for more info Click Here

Artist Statement:

‘More than Just a Game'

The work explores Place, Culture, Memory, and a Nostalgia of something irretrievable from a time and place that no longer can be reached.

Growing up in Melbourne in the 90’s, the arcade was our place for escapism, our freedom to play with friends. Whilst our parents would dine at our family friend's Cantonese restaurant in Waratah Place, China Town, my twin brother, our friends, and I would go hang out at the Timezone in Bourke Street. With this work, I wanted to recapture that special time and space and make it my own, a space that I reflect on, wasn’t made for me as a young Koorie girl; playing games that were never a reflection of us or my lived experience. I wanted to reclaim that and create something that was ours that reflects my lived experiences.

The statement “For them it was 'just a game', but for us it was life.” Is multi-layered.

This statement also speaks to the way all forms of Government have used and controlled us, like we are part of their game, when for us it is our lives and the intrinsic richness of being connected to our lands and culture.

The correlations between the arcade game of the 90’s and the way Governments of today continue to treat First Peoples as issues and without connection to our Ancestral Lands, in my experience, is like we’re part of a game that they control, as though we as a peoples, exist only to be ‘played' - they control our now and our future, and we simply struggle to quit out of it!

Just like in the arcade game of old, and Government initiatives that are currently about US, without US - I want US to be seen, to have a say that enables US to take back control - this is our birth-rite, our self-determination because we are 'more than just a game'

The game element of this work is a collaboration with Charlotte Allingham aka “Coffin Birth”. We wanted to create a game that was ours for mob, a story of a young Koorie/Torres Strait Islander young person being on Kulin country in an alternative/future Melbourne CBD and their journey to catch up at the arcade with friends. What would Melbourne look like if our culture was respected and not erased. If we are seen more than negative stereotypes but a living ever evolving culture and people. Just existing and living our lives like everyone else.