Grounded

Grounded

Celebrating Arts NAIDOC 2017

Grounded, a commissioned exhibition by Glasgow Life for Festival 2014, XX Commonwealth Games, is the seventh exhibition in Judith Parrott’s Place Matters series. Grounded presents the outcome of two residencies; one in the Gaelic speaking Outer Hebrides of Scotland and the other with the Australian Aboriginal nations of the Central Australian desert and the plains of Western Queensland.

Grounded features photography, sound, audio-visual, language and prose; with inspiration drawn from landscape and stories shared by the local people. Judith’s artistic interpretation addresses issues surrounding connection to land, language, and each other for environmental and personal wellbeing.

The exhibition leads us on a journey from windswept, flower-filled Machair and surging seas to gently rolling sandhills mapped by Songlines and The Dreaming. On both sides of the world, loss of land and suppression of language caused a breakdown of cultural identity still evident today. Pride in cultural heritage and a deep connection to the land and spirituality, surface as the force behind the resilience and strength that have kept the cultures alive.

The exhibition also details Judith’s overnight imprisonment in Alice Springs. Judith’s case was dismissed in court and the story surrounding her arrest and the lack of any conviction vividly demonstrates, through first-hand experience, one of the many struggles still facing Australian Aboriginal people in Alice Springs today.

Brought to Queensland by Flying Arts Alliance, Grounded is touring the state until the end of 2018 - coinciding with the XXI Commonwealth Games in 2018 at the Gold Coast.

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