16 AUGUST - 9 SEPTEMBER
BACK GALLERY
FELTGRADUATE AWARD

JAYDA WILSON
BLOOD REIGN II

Works shown

Jayda Wilson, Blood Reign II, 2023, Oral History Interview (OH101), archival print, photography, 5:41

Archival Print: Wilson, N. 2003, Our Identity is Our History and Our Future, Europa Press, p32

Statement

A testimony to ancestral mastery, to memory that oozes in the cracks of my skin and spoken from the tip of my tongue, the ode to my mama-gu mama-gu ngundyu/mama-gu mama-gu wiya, Neva Wilson and to your parents, ngayagu dyamu-gu gabarli-gu, ngadhu dyamu-gu dyamu-gu.  

Blood Reign II is a re-telling of family history found in an Oral History interview conducted by the City of Adelaide in 1998 (OH101) of my late Great-grandmother Neva Wilson (1934 -2016). Excerpts of my Nana’s voice have been used as a storytelling of the experiences of Koonibba Mission and life without knowledge of language.  

A site for re-memory and an affirmation of sovereignty through repatriating wangga back to you Nana who could not speak our wangga.  

A repatriation of love back to those who walked before me and you who could speak our wangga freely and fluently. The wangga which I speak and sew on back to you Nana responds to these details spoken by you in English.

To Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers, Blood Reign II contains imagery and the voice of an Elder who has passed.

Bio

Jayda Wilson is proud Gugada and Wirangu emerging artists living and working on unceded Kaurna Yarta. Wilson’s current work focuses on the connection between language and identity as they ground themselves culturally and affirm sovereignty through Gugada and Wirangu wangga, embedded in country on the Far West of South Australia. Through working in mediums of sound, print, poetry and photography, Wilson’s multidisciplinary practice is a storytelling of a journey to reclaiming their other tongue, celebrating nuances of wangga through the re-telling of family history and is a site for re-memory and re-archiving. 

Photography: Brianna Speight