Translation: Exchange

Photograph by Russell James. Collaborative art by Lance Chadd (AUS).

4’11” x 6’4” archival pigment ink printed on rag cotton with acrylic and ochre applications.

Here I’ve got the brown eye on one side representing the brown or black people, and blue eye on the other side, representing white people or Whadjella’s. I’ve placed the other shoulder in here to balance it up with the original, so that we have an equality. I’ve also lightened one side to represent the white person and darkened the other to represent the black person. So I have the Whadjella eye looking from a black persons perspective and a black person looking from the Whadjella’s perspective.

There is a sharing and understanding of some sort. A merging and collaboration. It also suggests that it’s not just black and white! You need to start to see from the other cultures point of view in order to understand. If they’re looking, this one into that culture and this one into that culture and they’re sharing, so there develops an equality and a mutual respect. Which can only come from what is revealed in that relationship. We all have red blood! The more one looks, shares and understands of another culture the more they discover or have revealed about themselves.