Kent Morris: Unvanished

Unvanished was a series of digitally constructed photographs by contemporary Melbourne-based Barkindji artist Kent Morris. His photographs explore the relationship between contemporary Indigenous Australian identity and the modern built environment, highlighting the resilience of Indigenous people in the face of constantly changing circumstances and their ongoing connections to place amidst urban and suburban development.

residency

Kent Morris visited Kluge-Ruhe for a residency March 30 – April 29, 2019. He presented his art practice to UVA students in a Space, Knowledge and Power capstone class, a course titled Photography and the Uncanny, and Contemporary Aboriginal Art, in addition to lecturing at the Decolonizing the Digital Humanities symposium. He presented two tours of his exhibition, one to the public and another to members of the UVA Parents Fund, and discussed the breadth of his art practice in an Artist Talk. He presented at the 2019 Virginia Docent Exchange and he connected with Professor Andrew Kaufmann and the Albemarle County Regional Jail to discuss his leadership of The Torch, a non-profit that serves Indigenous Australian offenders and ex-offenders in Victoria. He visited the Fralin Museum of Art, the Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative, McGuffey Art Center, the Embassy of Australia, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Institute of Contemporary Art at VCU and Monticello. He also spent time in Washington, D.C. exploring the art storage facilities of the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of Natural History. He also built relationships with a number of environmental scientists in Virginia and went on three birding expeditions and numerous hikes in the Shenandoah National Park. Read this article by Erin O’Hare in the Cville Weekly about Kent and his time in Charlottesville.