The Melbourne Art Trams return for 2022, with six trams once again featuring designs by First Peoples artists. Curated by artist Jarra Karalinar Steel (Boonwurrung/Wemba Wemba), the collected works each respond to the theme “Unapologetically Blak”.

Jarra Karalinar Steel is the Melbourne Art Tram curator for RISING festival 2022.  She said "I'm really excited to see what artists come up with for this theme. I'm very excited to be a part of the RISING Art Trams and curating it this year. As last year, I was fortunate enough to have my artwork selected for the 2021 trams, thanks to the amazing work of the curator, Kimberley Moulton."

2022 ARTISTS :

• Lin Onus (Yorta Yorta)
• Louise Moore (Wamba)
• Patricia Mckean (Gundijtmara/Kirrae Wurrong)
• Dr Paola Balla (Wemba-Wemba/Gundijtmara)
• Tegan Murdock (Burapa)
• Darcy McConnell / Enoki (Yorta Yorta/Dja Dja Wurrung)

2022 CURATORIAL STATEMENT

‘Unapologetically Blak’ is the theme for the2002 Melbourne Art Trams curated by Boon Wurrung artist, curator and cultural consultant, Jarra Karalinar Steel.

‘Unapologetically Blak’ invites First Nations artists who are either Victorian Traditional owners, or a First Nations person residing/working in Victoria, to respond to ideas of family and kin, connection and care of country, personal expressions of culture, language, and blak excellence.

The theme is a call for self-determined expressions, recognising the dynamic ways of existing as a First Nations person, living in so called Victoria; a celebration of our success, our growth, and our continued desire to be stronger as a peoples; recognising our mob disrupting, and redefining what being blak means for them, and that we can, and will, continue to do what our passions are, regardless of the glass ceiling that attempts to hold us.

Creating space for these diverse identities allows for conversations around individual identities within a community of many realities, and honouring the peoples that have grown within this space. We have not only survived, but are thriving, and creating footsteps worth following for our future generations.

The concept pays homage to the 1994 collaborative First Nations group exhibition, Blakness: Blak City Culture! featuring the work of Destiny Deacon. Curators of the exhibition Clare Williamson and Hetti Perkins described Destiny Deacon’s development of the term ‘Blak’ as “part of a symbolic, but potent strategy of reclaiming colonialist language to create means of self-definition and expression”.

Journalist Kate Munro reflected on this contribution more recently in her piece, Why ‘Blak’ not ‘Black’, stating that, “Deacon staunchly redefined both the spelling and the meaning of the word ‘black’ as a direct response to non-Indigenous people's labelling and consistent misrepresentations of our people”.

The brief to artists: Be bright, bold and Unapologetically Blak.

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