Event Libby Harward

Libby Harward

First Thursdays

5 December 2019
6.30–9pm

Join artist Libby Harward for an evening of embodied performance titled AMPLIFICATION: AFFIRMATION: LOCATION, SPIRIT, SONG, creating a call for healing through sound.

Harward, a Ngugi woman of Quandamooka, will present a sound performance using an archaeological sieve and a 44-gallon drum fitted with an “irrigation sound system”, amplifying instruments of occupation, classification, extraction, and greed. Harward’s performance produces “…the sound of sieving ourselves through the mechanisms of ongoing colonisation to prove our existence under the oppression of foreign law.”

Then see a set by melodic hardcore band Wildheart, headed by Yugambeh man Axel Best. Both Harward and Wildheart’s work tap into the global rising tide of protest and resistance, fighting against exploitative systems based on greed and oppression.

Guest Info
  • Libby Harward

    Libby Harward is a descendent of the Ngugi people of Mulgumpin (Moreton Island) in the Quandamooka (Moreton Bay area). Known for her early work as an urban graffiti artist under the pseudonym ‘Mz Murricod’, and her performance-based community activism, Harward’s recent series, ALREADY OCCUPIED, engages a continual process of re-calling, re-hearing, re-mapping, re-contextualising, de-colonising, and re-instating on country which colonisation has denied Australia’s First Peoples.

    This political practice engages Traditional Custodians in the creation of ephemeral installations on mainland country that have become highly urbanised. Harward’s practice seeks to uncover and reinstate the cultural significance of place, which always was and continues to be present. Her current place-based sound and video work engages directly with politically charged ideas in national and international debates through various embodied and symbolic (inter)actions. Harward is currently exhibiting internationally in the exhibition Garden of Earthly Delights, Gropius Bau in Berliner Festspiele, and is creating works to be exhibited as part of Next Wave 2020, Melbourne.

    Wildheart

    Brisbane band Wildheart released their debut self-produced EP “A Thousand Days” in 2016 and have since made a name for themselves with energetic live performances of powerful and heartfelt songs that deal with racism, oppression, depression, and anxiety. Their latest single “Rising Tide” features guest vocals from fellow Yugambeh/Bundjalung man Shaun Allen of Gold Coast band Nerve Damage.

Photo: Harvey Harward.

The Institute of Modern Art acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land upon which the IMA now stands, the Jagera, Yuggera, Yugarapul, and Turrbal people. We offer our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the first artists of this country. In the spirit of allyship, the IMA will continue to work with First Nations people to celebrate, support, and present their immense past, present, and future contribution to artistic practice and cultural expression.

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