Brisbane Blacks

Sat 7 May 2022

The University of Queensland Anthropology Museum

Brisbane as a Storied City

#Performances

#About the event

Duration: 60 minutes

In the ‘80s Sandra Phillips and Michael Aird were among University of Queensland’s first Indigenous students. By the late ‘90s, Michael was interviewing Sandra for his book Brisbane Blacks. Now she’s an Associate Dean in Humanities and Social Sciences at UQ and he is Director of UQ’s Anthropology Museum. Join them there as they revisit the book and its stories, two decades after it was first published.

#Artists

Michael Aird

Michael Aird is Director of the University of Queensland Anthropology Museum and ARC Research Fellow. He has worked in the area of Aboriginal arts and cultural heritage since 1985 maintaining an interest in documenting aspects of urban Aboriginal history and culture. He has curated over 30 exhibitions including; Portraits of Our Elders (1993) a Queensland Museum travelling exhibition, Transforming Tindale (2012) at the State Library of Queensland, Captured: Early Brisbane Photographers and Their Aboriginal Subjects (2014) at the Museum of Brisbane. In 1996 he established Keeaira Press an independent publishing house, producing over 35 books. Other publications he has contributed to include; Photography's Other Histories (2003) edited by Christopher Pinney and Nicolas Peterson, also Calling The Shots: Aboriginal Photographies (2014) edited by Jane Lydon, and the art Gallery of News South Wales exhibition catalogue, The photograph and Australia (2015) edited by Judy Annear.

Sandra Phillips

Raised on ancestral Country of the Wakka Wakka and also proudly Gooreng Gooreng, Sandra is a mother and grandmother. Professionally, Sandra leads cultural change as Associate Dean (Indigenous Engagement) in Humanities and Social Sciences at The University of Queensland. In 2016, Sandra won the Johnno Award for outstanding contribution to writing in Queensland, after a long career in editing and publishing with Magabala Books, UQP, ASP, and freelancing. Sandra now publishes in diverse outlets, her formal qualifications are in the social sciences and creative industries, her worldview is Aboriginal, and in the simplest terms, she joins dots and makes things happen.