ORIGINS AND MUSEUMS THE BRISTOL MUSEUM WINTER LECTURE: THE ORIGINS FESTIVAL AND INDIGENOUS INTERVENTIONS

IN MUSEUMS

9th December 2021

Bristol Museum & Art Gallery

Indigenous Australia: British Museum 2015

Relationships between museums and Indigenous people have become increasingly complex in recent years, with questions of ownership, appropriation, decolonisation and repatriation coming to the fore. ORIGINS has been

The British Museum 17th -18th February 2022

To complement the British Museum’s exhibition PERU: A JOURNEY IN TIME, ORIGINS presented a series of activities and events. José Navarro (Quechua) again performed AMAZON VISIONS for young audiences, while embroiderer Bella Lane ran workshops on ancestral Paracaas embroidery to teach visitors its history and techniques, so they could contribute to the installation for the evening show!

We screened WIÑAYPACHA (ETERNITY), the first feature film shot entirely in the Indigenous Aymara language, shown as a tribute to its young director Óscar Catacora, who had sadly died shortly before.

The evening event CELEBRATING PERU was packed, in spite of coinciding with a hurricane! Quechua shaman Kurikundi opened the evening by performing a blessing on the performers, audience and museum objects. Baroque music from Peru was performed by Rafael Montero in Indigenous languages Aymara and Quechua, accompanied by Roberto Gutierrez and Johnny Rodriguez; while Sumaq Ayllu / Sagrada Familia (Raymi Willka, Kanti Quena & Phaxsi Coca) performed Andean music. José Navarro returned alongside José a Fernandez to perform a Ritual Scissor Dance.

25th-26th June 2022

City Centre Gardens, Birmingham and subsequently online

Border Crossings’ ORIGINS Festival, ɅVɅ DANCE

COMPANY & b.solomon//ELECTRIC MOOSE

Presented as part of Birmingham International Dance Festival 2022, produced by FABRIC. Commissioned as part of the Birmingham 2022 Festival, generously supported by Arts Council England, BIDF, the Canada Council for the Arts and the High Commission of Canada in the United Kingdom

As Birmingham prepared to host the Commonwealth Games, REMEMBRANCES asked how best to welcome Indigenous people as visitors to the city, the country and the land. In the time of #BlackLivesMatter, and in the face of colonial injustices, how can we offer a genuine space of welcome to First Nations people from Commonwealth countries?

The piece was in two parts:

1. WE WHO HOPE TO WELCOME

Choreographed by Avatâra Ayuso. Dancers: Eva Escrich González, Amy Hollinshead, Georgia Rose Thompson. Music by Dave Carey. Texts by Michael Walling & Matthew James Weigel.

2. RED FLAG

Choreographed by b.solomon//ELECTRIC MOOSE. Dancers: Marianna Medellin Canales, b.solomon. Click here for our online programme

Photos: Avatâra Ayuso

From 9th July 2022

On July 9th 2022, ORIGINS commemorated the raising of the Aboriginal flag on Dover Beach with the unveiling of a plaque commissioned from Wiradjuri-British artist Jasmine Coe.

On 2nd November 1976, two Aboriginal men landed on Dover beach, and planted the Aboriginal flag, symbolically claiming the land for Indigenous Australians "by virtue of possession". One of them was the famous activist Paul Coe. In 2022, commissioned by ORIGINS, Paul’s daughter Jasmine designed the plaque, installed permanently on Dover beach as a memorial to these events.

Our short film, featuring Paul and Jasmine Coe, explains the background to the landing, and its relationship to the wider context of Aboriginal activism.

From 17th August 2022

Click here to download the podcast

This podcast is an audio guide for a walking tour of Central London sites associated with Indigenous visitors to London since 1497. The tour begins at Covent Garden tube station, and ends on Westminster Bridge, lasting around two hours.

The audio guide is narrated by Kahu Burrows (Māori: Ngāti Maru) and Nathan Woodworth (Native AmericanKaruk).

The tour was prepared by Prof. David Stirrup from the BEYOND THE SPECTACLE project, and based on Prof. Coll Thrush’s book INDIGENOUS LONDON: NATIVE TRAVELLERS AT THE HEART OF EMPIRE. We are grateful to both authors. Supported by the High Commission of Canada as part of ORIGINS.

The photo shows Warriors of AniKituhwa recreating the Abbey Road EP cover, 2019. Members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the Warriors came to London in 2019 to walk in the Lord Mayor's New Years Day Parade and to retrace the footsteps of their ancestors who came to London in 1762 to reinforce treaty relationships with the British.

Image credit: Beyond the Spectacle and the AHRC