Christian Thompson: Future Ancestors

Future Ancestors presents two photographs and one video work by renowned Bidjara artist Christian Thompson that explore a non-linear interpretation of time. This assertion of existence across time is not tied to a Western understanding of chronological familial lineage. It suggests the continuation of culture and its capacity to develop and evolve while retaining a timelessness. Thompson’s photographs are from his ongoing Flower Wall series and show the artist’s lined face dissolving into an immense floral wall. His multiple splayed hands are marked with a cross-hatching technique particular to the Arnhem Land region of Australia. The two large-scale photographs reference creation myths and colonization. The video activates Thompson’s traditional language, Bidjari, which is considered an “extinct” Aboriginal Australian language. 

Thompson made history in 2010 when he became the first Aboriginal Australian to be admitted into the University of Oxford in its 900-year history. He holds a doctorate of philosophy in fine art from Trinity College, University of Oxford, and is an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to the visual arts as a sculptor, photographer, video and performance artist, and as a role model for young Indigenous artists.

Future Ancestors is organized by Curator for Global Indigenous Art and Lifeways Ryan Clasby and is supported by the Spencer’s Arts Research Integration program.