A Proposition towards A Praxis of Treaty with International Country | Portals out of The Garden of Non by Jonathan Kimberley

The exhibition will be opened by: puralia meenamatta Jim Everett (plangermairreenner / pakana) & Gloria Andrews (pakana), elders of meenamatta country, lutruwita (Tasmania).

A Proposition towards A Praxis of Treaty with International Country | Portals out of The Garden of Non, is an artistic journey through the atemporal Originary of (Neolithic) petroglyphs at Ilkley Moor, West Yorkshire, UK; and South Tyrol, Northern Italy; guided through the paragon portal of First Nations ‘meenamatta petroglyphs’ in lutruwita (Tasmania), Australia.  An open manifesto towards the decolonisation of myself, the work is a solo praxis of transcultural responsibility, grounded in long-term collaborative art praxis with First Nations elders puralia meenamatta Jim Everett (plangermairreenner / pakana), and Gloria Andrews (pakana), in meenamatta country, lutruwita (Tasmania).  As a descendent of a First Fleet convict from the UK who became a free settler-coloniser of lutruwita in 1808, the project reflects on my personal sense of loss of deep-time ancestral knowledge within my cultural Originary in the UK and Europe.   

'The Garden of Non' describes what I see as a temporal plane of perpetual self-negation by (post)Western culture. A cultural condition caused by a profound lack of truth-telling to Originary (prehistoric) (proto)Western self.  'The Garden of Non' is both causal and consequential of the problematic notion of 'non-Aboriginal', which I argue is an inept deference to presumptive and premature (post)Western (post)coloniality.   A  work of international pilgrimage, the thesis becomes a creative allegory and portent for a potentially much larger decolonisation of (post)Western culture. An achronic coda of the present; a pause; a spatiality betwēox; a metaphorical line in the sand; a cultural listening through the contemporary resonance of Originary petroglyphs as ciphers of (de)colonial resistance in the UK and Europe. A non-definitive decolonial interlocutor between (post)Western contemporaneity and the atemporal wisdom of petroglyphs of Originary and First Nations’ International Country. The exhibition and the petroglyphs themselves are portals out of ‘The Garden of Non,’  towards ‘Something Else.’ *

Acknowledgements
Jonathan Kimberley acknowledges that this project is presented on unceded Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country, Canberra; as well as through First Nations meenamatta Country, lutruwita (Tasmania); and Originary International Country in West Yorkshire, UK and South Tyrol, Italy.
 
The PhD research was developed through the Australian National University, College of Arts and Social Sciences (Interdisciplinary Cross-Cultural Research), Canberra, Australia (2019-2024); and Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London, UK (2022).  

Thank you to my panel: Dr Maya Haviland, Prof. Howard Morphy, Prof. Chris McAuliffe, Dr Bill Balaskas, for their advice, counsel, and unwavering support.  

Special thanks to: puralia meenamatta Jim Everett (plangermairreenner / pakana), and Gloria Andrews (pakana), for their love, wisdom, and cultural guidance;  Paul Bennett for his warm and knowing welcome in the UK; and to Danielle Hanifin. 

Thank you to all staff and peers at the ANU Centre for the Arts and Social Sciences. Thanks also to Assoc. Prof. Chaitanya Sambrani, and Megan Hinton and team at the ANU School of Art & Design / Gallery for generously hosting my PhD Exhibition / Installation in May 2024.


Jonathan Kimberley is an Artist, Curator and Writer. His work over the past 30 years includes diverse transcultural and collaborative art practice, national and international curatorial projects, and critical art writing. He specializes in working collaboratively with artists and organisations at complex decolonial intersections of local < > international contemporary art. He develops nomadic artistic and cultural projects that combine digital and analogue technologies, ephemeral and migratory praxes, installation, sound, performance, visual art, and writing. 

Jonathan is a Higher Degree by Research Candidate, completing his Doctor of Philosophy. The research was developed through the Australian National University, College of Arts and Social Sciences (Interdisciplinary and Cross-Cultural Research) and Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London, UK.


* NB:  The written components of the PhD thesis are available online via QR code within the exhibition.