#Performances
#About the event
Duration: 60 minutes
Dr Fiona Foley addresses the inherent silences, errors and injustices from the perspective of her people, the Badtjala of K'gari (Fraser Island). Biting the Clouds is a confronting and provocative examination of the little-known colonial-era practice of paying Indigenous workers in opium, with the aim of making Aboriginals a compliant source of labour - and the 'solution' of displacing them to K’gari.
#Artists
Fiona Foley
Dr Foley was awarded, The Inaugural Monica Clare Research Fellowship 2020 from the State Library of Queensland towards a publication entitled, Bogimbah Creek Mission: The First Aboriginal Experiment. In addition, Dr Foley is the 2020 recipient of the highly prestigious, Capstone Editing Early Career Academic Research Grant for Women.
Her publication titled, Biting the Clouds: The Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act, 1897, was launched on 4 November and is published by the University of Queensland Press (UQP).
Foley completed her PhD with Griffith University in 2017. The thesis topic examined Queensland's legislation, The Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act, 1897. Her new work on this subject was received with significant interest and in 2021 she will hold a major retrospective exhibition at QUT Art Museum.
Fiona Foley is a founding member of Boomalli Aboriginal Artist Co-operative. She exhibits regularly in Australia and internationally. Her recent solo exhibitions were held at Andrew Baker Art Dealer, Brisbane 2017, Ballarat International Foto Biennale 2019 and then at the National Art School, Sydney, 2020.
Cheryl Leavy
Cheryl Leavy is a Kooma and Nguri writer whose poem Ngali – We two won the 2022 Oodgeroo Noonuccal Poetry Prize. Cheryl’s first children’s book, Yanga Mother, will be published by UQP in 2024 and her second, For You Country, in 2025. Passionate about language revitalisation, Cheryl often writes in her Kooma language.
