Aftermath: Performance Installation
Aftermath: Performance Installation ANDRE STITT ‘Dingo: A treatment towards a new communionism’ Curator: Blair French
Performance 4-7pm Thursday 9 – Saturday 11 August 2007
André Stitt’s new performance ‘akshun’ involves the artist being locked in a cage with a dingo at certain times over a three-day period referencing Joseph Beuys’ performance I Like America and America Likes Me (also commonly referred to as ‘Coyote’) created in New York in 1974.
Within indigenous cultures the coyote was deified and attributed the archetype of trickster’ – a subversive and symbolic character capable of transformative power and healing. The ‘dingo’ like the ‘Coyote’ has also become synonymous with fear; represented in dominant cultural iconography as an antisocial menace. And, like the coyote, the dingo has also become the victim of legalised revenge and persecution.
To para-quote Beuys: “you could say that a reckoning has to be made with the dingo, and only then can this trauma be resolved.”
André Stitt Dingo 2007
The work brings together elements of Stitt’s practice: artistic activism and direct engagement in socio-cultural and politically contentious issues. These general concerns are linked to the wider implications of post-colonial trauma, cultural imperialism, psychological and real genocide.
The name ‘dingo’ comes from the Eora language André Stitt’s performance is supported by Wales Arts International
ARTSPACE 43 – 51 Cowper Wharf Road Woolloomooloo NSW 2011 Sydney Australia
T: +61 2 9356 0555 F: +61 2 9368 1705