‘Now as you lift my veil you see me raw and exposed, no longer hidden from the atrocities of society. Homeless, nowhere to go on my birth land, my land, once humble and proud now hurt bruised and broken. Prisoners left to die behind the barbed wire. Maybe if I hide here the night prey won’t find me. Life has broken me, systems have broken me, and the lack of general human kindness has broken me. Shifted from land knowledge and culture, roaming lost from family, lost from my Lore, lost from the world. Our Boori taken and placed in the cold, this is the untold truth the hidden truth the shame truth all told by your lies. But look, we can still see our family connections, broken at times, governed by white law but we still see them. I see them do you? How do we see our person who is unseen?..
-Trish
- Title: I was broken and now I am not
- Artist: Trish
- Year: 2024
- Medium: Photographs, acrylic, stencils, crochet and mixed media on fabric
We need to look into who they are, We look into where they are, and we ask ourselves how do we help to make change when our voices don’t matter, and then we rely on those things that matter to us when we hide under the river bed by a stranger’s fire. The darkness becomes my friend as if I hide they can’t see me, but if I get out of the light it won’t hurt as much, it will be like my veil I will be unseen, rough cruel hands will hurt and most of all the cold, the wind and the rain will hurt and I will be left uncovered and exposed to the streets and no one will see who I am.
Nature will shelter me at times from these things and at times even nature will turn and harm me. I have no walls around me, I just have stories, and journeys, I have hurt, and I am all of this. But I still have me. I am human, look at me not through me, I am important. Look beyond what you see. Look beyond the dirty face. Look beyond the broken mind and see me through my heart. I wasn’t born unseen.
I hope you see me, through this art, I believe art creates a conversation it shows you a journey that you can travel on and see what your mind sees, art shows you a picture, it shows you a colour, it’s not a colour of black or white it shows you the colour of how dark our world can be, and it can show you the colour of how warm our world can be, we can do all this through art and yet we cannot give a hand of help.
Art opens doors, it mends broken minds, and it heals broken hearts come on my journey through this art but when you leave me, please leave me with my veil as I know as it falls over me it will help me as I am the unseen.’
-Trish