Reflecting on connections to land and country, to language and identity, to the political and the polemical, creative and critical throughlines connect the practices of artist collectives proppaNOW and New Red Order. With this complex set of interrelationships in mind, the Vera List Center invited the artists to join each other in dialogue on the occasion of proppaNOW’s arrival in New York City in October 2023. Thinking and working across hemispheres, the conversation covers topics ranging from land acknowledgments to Indigenous sovereignty and the limitations and potentials of the global. Through this dialogue, the collectives respond to the ongoing effects of settler colonialism, while jointly envisioning a world beyond it. This conversation took place over two sessions in July 2023 over Zoom and has been edited for length and clarity.

Participants
proppaNOW: Tony Albert, Richard Bell, Megan Cope, Lily Eather, Gordon Hookey, Warraba Weatherall
New Red Order: Jackson Polys, Zack Khalil

Facilitators
Re’al Christian and Eriola Pira, Vera List Center

Jackson Polys – NRO: One of our goals is to try to think through the potential overlaps in terms of our practice shared concerns. How our respective groups differ in terms of formation and production of work, how we operate, and then our respective relations to land, maybe drawing out some of the distinctions between how settler colonialism affects this continent or our position here. We are one of the many Indigenous people and groups in this area working. But both Zack and myself are not from this region, so that’s another facet to our participation here and interaction with you all.

Megan Cope – pN: Hmm, well, I guess we’re connected in that way. We say that we’re based in Brisbane as a collective, but we come from many parts of Queensland. Not all of us can produce work on our countries, on our territories, and make a living. So that’s just part of what we’ve inherited. But here we have a protocol of hosting and acknowledgment, so we wanted to make sure that we’re following protocols, which I believe in the US are similar when you arrive on unceded indigenous land.

Jackson – NRO: I can respond to the way we’ve dealt with or negotiated expectations around territorial acknowledgment. One of the conceits of New Red Order is that it was never “founded.” It arose out of contradistinction from the Improved Order of Red Men, a secret society that claims lineage to the Boston Tea Party, where the settlers threw tea in the Boston Harbor while dressed up as Natives in order to separate themselves from the British, enact this ideal of freedom, and embody the “savage” in order to do that. NRO formed as a public secret society, which is related to the “public secret” of settler colonialism (Taussig 1999).

Megan – pN: Yeah.

Jackson – NRO: So to connect that back to territorial acknowledgment, one of the first instances in which we approach that subject was through this performance and collaboration with Jim Fletcher, who has experience as a former Native American impersonator. And it was his work with a theater company that had got called out for inappropriately representing people. And then we started working with him, and worked on this performance called The Informants at Artists Space in 2017, in which he enacted an apology, we revisited that event at the Whitney Museum called the Savage Philosophy of Endless Acknowledgment in 2018. We were trying to intervene with simultaneous critique and promotion of practice of land acknowledgment or territorial acknowledgment, which was just then catching steam. So we wanted to try to make sure that any pronouncement of a land acknowledgment was not just something that honored or respected Native people or claimed to do so, but was also anchored to a commitment to Indigenous people in that area and beyond, and to find ways to make that material.

Warraba Weatherall – pN: The acknowledgments and welcomes within Australia are very similar to that. They actually derive from customary processes but have been standardized within a Western way of presenting them. That becomes tokenized a lot of the time. For example, when you have ministers and officials who are doing acknowledgments, but it’s not their country—then they’ll acknowledge the traditional owners, but most of the time they won’t actually speak their names. In many ways it becomes redundant. Many times they probably don’t even know the name, or they’re too scared to pronounce it. So the symbolic nature of it reduces it just to performance. But because we’re all minorities in our own country, it’s important to build those global conversations between Indigenous mobs to find that power, to learn from other people, and to mirror our experiences. But then also, what does that mean? A sort of global resolution?

Richard Bell – pN: Yeah, I find the welcome to country and land acknowledgment really tedious. So, yeah… I’m not a great believer in symbolism. No, sir. For me, the welcome to countries annoy me, but the white people look so much more annoyed. And I kind of like that.

Jackson – NRO: [laughs] Yeah, yeah, it’s definitely true. I mean, it’s something that we could question and critique, but in many—maybe a majority of those instances—we would consider the benefit being that visibility could be a valuable irritant to those who have to wrestle with that presence.

Gordon Hookey – pN: For me, I like the acknowledgment of First Nations that this is our land and our country, like when you’re driving through, especially in New South Wales, where there are signs that say this is traditional land. I have a sense of warmth from the people from that country when I bypass those signs. Even though it may be tokenistic and symbolic, I’d rather have it there than not.

Richard – pN: Oh, me, too.

Megan – pN: Yeah. Well, it’s step one in a long list of steps. So, when do we take step two?

Lily Eather – pN: For my generation, in a sense it’s gone the other way, like it’s really fashionable to be Indigenous. I’m 26, and you almost feel like there are certain groups out there that associate with Indigenous people to get a kick out of it or to be able to say that they have Indigenous friends, and I don’t know if that’s some kind of white guilt … It’s very interesting.

Warraba – pN: Yeah. And in the generation that is coming through now, what’s starting to happen is that a lot more of the mob is looking at our own, regenerating our own cultural practices and knowledge.

Gordon – pN: With us as well, even as artists we’ve had to get recognition internationally before our own country even looked at us. And in winning this… being the recipient of this award, it goes a long way to just reinforce what we’re saying about how we have to make a little bit of a splash internationally before Australia even looked at us because basically, all of us, we’re quite tired of banging our heads up against the wall within our own country in order to hear our voice or even make a statement.

Zack Khalil – NRO: Hmm! That’s super interesting. One other question I have is a point of comparison. You’re talking about the sixties to the nineties, and I feel like there’s a sort of similar push for the American Indian movement. Post-Standing Rock (2015) exploded the level of visibility for Native American people here in a way that seems totally unprecedented. Where it is fashionable now, and our country is looking at our art and stuff like that. I’m just wondering if it had a ripple effect there, or if there’s any similar turning points in time in Australia as well.

Warraba – pN: I think this was also because Standing Rock was such a big thing over social media. There was, how Megan was saying, during that time around 2015 there was a bit of a shift. I would say that it’s actually because of that global consciousness about Standing Rock and other places around the world that things were happening, that then people were like, “Oh, I need to get on board with this or get left behind within the local politic as well.”

Jackson – NRO: With regard to global colony, that’s been the challenge for us here. “Indigenous” is a tricky term, because on the one hand, it’s expansive, it can allow for different forms of connection to those who have similar experiences with colonization. But it’s also, in some ways, it could be exclusionary for some people. So [for instance] “American Indians” is obviously a misnomer, but then [the term] “Native” was a way to try to [amend] that. But for us, “Native American” feels domesticating; it’s still within the confines of the so-called United States.

Megan – pN: Hmm!

Warraba – pN: Yeah, it’s a eurocentric construct of trying to identify the other, but then they determine their own identity through that. But it’s important to mention that there are various waves [of colonization]. There’s different dynamics that happen with the first invasion, with neocolonialism, with all of these different things.

Megan – pN: I think that these things are really critical when we look to the future, [especially] the process of rematriation. When we think about it in the global colony, it’s discussed [in relation to] climate change. If Indigenous peoples are going to be recognized and valued in the climate conversation—and I do believe that it is the only way forward, because who else has the knowledge and memory of deep time, of lands and waterways—it’s important to understand why we are articulating all this so that the positionality of who holds the knowledge, and perhaps some of the solutions for the future is not in the marketplace.

Zack – NRO: That’s a great point. And that’s definitely something that New Red Order, to use a crass term, is trying to capitalize on. If people are looking into Indigenous epistemologies at this time, it’s a way to survive this new apocalypse we’re all moving through currently. How can we share that knowledge and call people into that process, perhaps even call people into Indigeneity? It’s a question. It’s sketchy, and it’s troubling, and it’s fraught.

Megan – pN: But we have already. I mean this new apocalypse that the colonizers are terrified of—who best to learn from than those who have already endured an apocalypse.

Jackson – NRO: Yes.

Richard – pN: But they all know it. They’re not gonna fucking listen. We gotta get into the fucking rich neighbors and burn their fucking cars. Like they’re doing in France.

Megan – pN: Get rid of their possessions, strip them back.

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Gordon – pN: There’s many different levels of identity for “Black fellas” or for Murri people in Australia. We call ourselves Murri if we’re part of the state but we also identify with the land in the country where we come from as well. For example, even though I’m a Murri, I’m also a Waanji person as well, and I guess there’s the overall identity relation to the country, Australia as well that way, or just Black fellas.

Megan – pN: For us in Moreton Bay, Quandamooka country, the anchor of our identity is place, and how we relate to it. It informs us of who we are. And that’s particularly reinforced through kinship structures that come through seasons and cycles. We’re lucky because our people never left our ancestral lands. So Aboriginal people who have that, who have family who’ve never left our relation to country is paramount to our identity. But that’s not everyone as well, and I acknowledge that. And like Gordon said, my aunties also say, “We’re Goorie” when we’re in a group and we’re traveling away from the island.

Lily – pN: Well, for me, personally, I’ve never lived on country, but my dad [Laurie Nilsen] did and his connection to land was absolutely palpable and informed his practice as well. I guess I absorbed that connection through him and my family, my grandma, going back and visiting country was a really special time. It’s something I can’t explain having not lived there, this deep sense of the importance of this place.

Gordon – pN: It’s like a belonging. You belong somewhere.

Lily – pN: Yeah, even though I’ve never lived there. And that informed all of his art, his connection to country, environmental concerns, all the Black and white people living on the country.

Tony Albert – pN: I think the relationship to land is fundamental to our identity and our existence. And that doesn’t come from a sense of ownership. It comes from a sense of belonging.

Warraba – pN: For me, country or land, it’s the birthplace of all of our cultural knowledges, so when we look at the knowledge, kinship, and cultural epistemology that exist today within our practice as well, it all stems from from the landscape, from phenomena, from cycles, as Megan was saying. As a worldview, it’s a paradigm that’s grounded in country and and not in some way that’s been sort of abstracted through a white lens, but very much familiar in a cultural lens.

Zack – NRO: Yeah, for me personally, as an Ojibway person the land is super central to my identity and my ability to practice my cultural heritage. I work a lot on rematriation, repatriation of ancestors and human remains, constantly trying to bring ancestors back to the land, and I always remember that the land and the ancestors are so deeply intertwined. In terms of our work as New Right Order, we are advocating for the return of land, so that our people can continue to thrive. I feel fortunate to come from a tribal community that is still based on its traditional land because there are so many Indigenous communities in the United States that aren’t. So working hard to advocate for the return of those lands is a central part of our practice and my identity personally.

Jackson – NRO: Similarly, I’m fortunate to belong to a community, people, Tlingit people, who have connections continually to the land, and although there were fights over ownership and continue to be fights over power, control, sovereignty, and the ability to steward the land in responsible ways, there is a significant percentage of Tlingit people who are still on those lands and waters. I recognize that that’s a privileged position and not one that everyone has. Thinking through that difference and spectrum is part of what instigates New Red Order activities. As a Tlingit person, and Zack and Adam [Khalil] as Ojibway, coming from very different places, but having some overlapping epistemologies is a fertile place to confront the reality that we are also in some ways coming to our understanding of land and the particularities of ownership through a reactive lens. We’re reacting against colonialism, European colonialism and ideas of ownership that don’t always mesh with our ideas of ownership, if we can call them that.

Gordon – pN: Well, for me, just looking at it, we have this connection to our land, country, and our people, but in the end the determinant is the power that the colonial structures hold. But we do have our own systems and our own values and norms, within this hierarchical colonial system that we live in. For us, it’s a constant negotiation with ourselves, but also with the powers that be.

Megan – pN: I feel that every generation has had its own delicate way of fighting. Every generation for the last six generations have gone from aggressive to passive, or a sort of peaceful resistance, in these different stages. It’s important to know what language we’re using, how we’re fighting—not fight, sorry. Surviving is actually a better word.

Jackson – NRO: I think one of the tricks is finding ways to fight in terms of articulating a sovereignty that allows for difference. That’s one of the challenges we might face.

Zack – NRO: In terms of overlaps and distinctions between how settler colonialism functions in each of our unique, continental contexts, it’s interesting to pick up on that conversation around Standing Rock. In the United States context, we’re finally trying to move past visibility as a goal in and out of itself, right? We’re still here, but it isn’t enough. We want our land back. I think the political and cultural moments that we’ve been moving through and Standing Rock in 2015, and the Black Lives Matter uprising in 2020, have pushed the mainstream into those conversations in the United States in a way that I don’t want to get too excited about, but it is a step in the right direction.

Warraba – pN: Definitely. There’s always white fellas trying to play catch up. It’s always reduced from our original terms of reference, so the onus is always on us, unfortunately, to educate. My father always asks me, “If you weren’t making, if you didn’t have to make political artwork today, what would you make art work about?”

Lily – pN: I guess it depends on the people involved and what their intentions are, because there are many different directions that they can take. Of course there are white people out there that are involved with helping us out in the community, but it goes in other directions as well.

Megan – pN: I just feel like we have surrendered enough for the purposes of capitalism and extraction and colonialism. We’ve lost enough. We’re at stages now where we are building ourselves up again, and being able to speak in a way that is fearless, and does not have the consequences that our ancestors had a few generations ago. [We have to exist] as free agents to express ourselves and to represent our people, to make sure that we’re in charge of not only what we present, but how it’s handled by the audience.

Gordon – pN: Yeah, yeah. Thinking globally and engaging with First Nations people around the world, we develop a strong sense of solidarity, a sense of learning and knowing that we’re not alone. One of the clichés I like to think about is “think globally, act locally.”

Megan – pN: [One of the questions we were asked] is, “What are the limitations of global, of co-opting or conflating Indigenous identities? Alternatively, how can this term build global solidarities?”

Warraba – pN: It’s a really good question, but I am always cautious of understanding it and not thinking of it too one dimensionally, because when we talk about conflating or co-opting identities it also, you got to think about who’s the agent? Who’s doing the co-opting? What’s the power dynamics there? Which direction? What’s the intention? Even things that are a bit more surface level, where people are directly appropriating artwork and regalia, they don’t understand the cultural protocols that go with it.

Jackson – NRO: For a lot of people in North America, their first encounter with anything Indigenous had to do with an appropriation. Whether it be through a mascot or monuments, or some stereotype that was reified through popular culture, so that in some ways it becomes necessary, through this re-education enterprise, to move through and acknowledge and work with those representations. That doesn’t quite get to what Warraba was saying about looking forward to the future—if colonialism doesn’t exist, what would we be doing. I really appreciate repositioning our focus in that regard. That’s something that we have to do now: see how we can work together to do these things in parallel and continuously, and find ways to intermingle with them. And that’s one of the exciting things about “Indigenous” as a term. Even if it might be dangerous, it allows us to meet together in global situations and talk through our differences so that we can remain focused on what’s unique and at risk of being lost.

Richard – pN: I think that’s part of our cultural upbringing, developing the tools that’s necessary to think communally. It was a pretty natural progression, really, starting a collective.

Megan – pN: And in a lot of ways [a collective] art practice is a methodology or a movement that relies on that solidarity and political alliances. As friends, we naturally think and feel and strategize in similar ways. I guess there’s unity in the vision of what the purpose of us being together is for because we can also see the past and previous generations. We can recognize all that, we’re all connected to that.

Richard – pN: Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

Tony – pN: Really important, when symbiotics are nurtured rather than defended.

Megan – pN: Yes!

Tony – pN: That is a huge part of who we are, and something that has stuck with me for a very long time. So when you look from the outside looking in, Our member Vernon Ah Kee’s wife said that she can be in any gallery situation and she can identify a proppaNOW artwork. It may not necessarily be an artwork by a proppaNOW member, but she identifies the way of thinking, a way of conceptualizing, and a way of working that is cohesive to who we are as a collective. And I loved the idea that it extends beyond just us.

Gordon – pN: Yeah, connecting to what Tony said in relation to what Lisa, that’s Vernon’s wife, alluded to, that she’s looking at proppaNOW, our philosophy, our attitude, as more of a movement, rather than a group of individuals. I just like to think that long after we’re gone, proppaNOW art will remain—not necessarily by us, but by those that have been inspired or influenced in some way.

Megan – pN: I feel like New Red Order is similar. You guys apply the same strategies, informed by intergenerational progress, responsibility, and vision.

Jackson – NRO: Yeah, I think there’s a lot of similarity in terms of formation and wanting to ensure that there’s a level of collectivity that exceeds a few individuals. Our bond arose out of a realization or an experience of being informants. We needed advocacy, but we didn’t want the kind of allyship that was self-serving without any real commitment to Indigenous people. So in 2014, we put out a call allowing others to inform on their own culture, to move through successive levels of engagement toward a process that would guarantee that they had to renegotiate their own understanding of what it means to work for Indigenous people, alongside Indigenous people, what positionality they could assume, and standing up for and working toward Indigenous sovereignty. And that led to this platform where we—Adam, Zack, and I—are core contributors; not founders of an artist collective, but more of a collection agency for colonial debts. Anyone can join.

Gordon – pN: Yeah!

Zack – NRO: I definitely see a lot of overlap between the way our collectives work. I also love this idea of thinking intergenerationally. That’s how I think about New Red Order when I’m the most optimistic. As something that could grow beyond us and beyond our control. It’s positing a political future and reality for others to run with and to take off with. To Jackson’s point, we’re calling in accomplices, we’re calling in non-Indigenous people to fight alongside us and advocate for these aims, for the goal of the rematriation, for the return of all Indigenous land and life. I also wanna acknowledge what Warraba said earlier, about not just making work about colonialism. Not always countering, not using the re- words, like repatriation, or the de- words, like decolonization, and instead questioning what we do as Indigenous people in our communities. How do we practice our cultural values outside of pushing back against something? That’s something I see in a lot of the work you all produce too. And it’s really inspiring.

Tony – pN: Thank you.

Megan – pN: We’re really invigorated by challenging the possibilities of what our art can be. And we’re quite firm in saying that art is whatever we want it to be. Self-determination and resistance of prescribed notions of identity are paramount. At all times.