INFRACTIONS is a feature length film that platforms important First Nation voices between Yallarm (Gladstone, Queensland)—where unconventional gas was first approved in Australia—and current struggles against shale gas fracking that threatens 51 per cent of the Northern Territory. The film is the final work of The Gas Imaginary, 2013–20, a project by Gladstone-born settler artist, writer and curator Rachel O’Reilly that has used poetry, drawing, moving image and lecture formats to explain the legal, aesthetic and technical conceits of ‘unconventional’ gas, in ongoing dialogue with Gooreng Gooreng elders and women environmental activists.

INFRACTIONS was made in the wake of the 2018 NT Scientific Inquiry into hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and before gas figured as a national solution to pandemic economics. Artists and community workers in INFRACTIONS speak up for songlines and refuse ‘northern development’ geographies and Professor Irene Watson, Pro Vice Chancellor Aboriginal Leadership and Strategy at the University of South Australia, explains the continuing entanglement of Terra Nullius logic with today’s intersecting ecosystemic crises.

Hosted by Dr Helen Hughes, Lecturer, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, Monash University, this conversation with Rachel and writer, scholar and activist Tony Birch considers differential cultural responsibilities on the side of climate justice. INFRACTIONS will also feature in The Tree School, running 11–23 March at MADA Gallery with Ray Dixon, a Mudburra Traditional Owner from Marlinja community near Elliott, Northern Territory, part of MUMA’s Tree Story.

Rachel O’Reilly

Rachel O’Reilly is a settler artist, writer, curator and PhD researcher at Goldsmiths’ Centre for Research Architecture. She teaches a seminar on infrastructure, planetarity and poetics as part of the How To Do Things with Theory program at the Dutch Art Institute. Recent curatorial collaborations include Ex-Embassy, Berlin; Planetary Records: Performing Justice between Art and Law, Contour Biennale; and Feminist Takes on Black Wave Film for Sternberg Press.

Tony Birch

Tony Birch is a multi-award winning author, curator, community activist and public intellectual. His books include Shadowboxing, Father’s Day, Blood, The Promise and Ghost River. He was the inaugural recipient of the Dr Bruce McGuinness Indigenous Research Fellowship at Victoria University, working in the Moondani Balluk Academic Centre and speaking internationally on  climate and contemporary Aboriginal history.

INFRACTIONS features: Dimakarri ‘Ray’ Dixon (Mudburra); Jack Green (Garawa, Gudanji); Gadrian Hoosan (Garrwa, Yanyuwa); Robert O’Keefe (Wambaya), Juliri Ingra and Neola Savage (Gooreng Gooreng); Que Kenny (Western Arrarnta); Cassie Williams (Western Arrarnta); the Sandridge Band from Borroloola; Professor Irene Watson (Tanganekald, Meintangk Bunganditj) contributor to the draft UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 1990-1994.

Form x Content is presented by Monash Art, Design & Architecture.
Programmed by Monash University Museum of Art.

^{Image: Still from Art, Mine Power and the Cultural Work of Climate Justice: Rachel O’Reilly and Tony Birch}

Acknowledgements:

INFRACTIONS was commissioned by KW Berlin Production Series, dedicated to artists’ moving image (supported by the Julia Stoschek Collection and OUTSET Germany_Switzerland) and premiered at Babylon Kino Berlin and ICA London (discursive partner). It features public programs with Que Kenny (Western Arrarnta) and is being toured in Australia with the support of IMA and Arts Queensland.