Publishing

Vernon Ah Kee: Born in this Skin

Because I am Aboriginal, because I was born with dark skin and dark, curly hair, I’ve never had the opportunity to be perceived as anything other than Aboriginal, and it has never occurred to me that I could be anything other than Aboriginal. So everything I think, say, and do is done from that position—never from outside that framework. I don’t think I’m always being overtly political. Mostly my works are simply about my life as an Aboriginal person. I use my work to establish some sort of equilibrium for myself.—Vernon Ah Kee

Brisbane-based Indigenous artist Vernon Ah Kee is known for his ennobling portrait drawings of family members, his declamatory agitprop textworks, and his video project CantChant, which reclaims the beach from white Australia. To coincide with Ah Kee's work appearing in the Australian exhibition Once Removed at this year's Venice Biennale, we produced a monograph on his work.

Born in this Skin includes essays by Robert Leonard, Anthony Gardner, Aileen Moreton-Robinson, and Blair French, and an interview with Glenn Barkley. Supported by QIAMEA. / $30