Animations 2023

Catalogue / Memoir
Introduction Pictures Objects Animations

ANIMATIONS are made from things I have made and found.

1973----   1988----   1991----   1994----   1995----   1998----   2000----   2001----   2003----   2006----   2007----   2008----   2009----   2010----   2011----   2012----   2013----   2014----   2015----   2016----   2017----   2018----   2019----   2020----   2021----   2022----   2023----   2024----   2025----   2026----  

Is a truly civil society one that shares and grows knowledge?

Growing and sharing knowledge
made by Lisa Roberts with Shawn Wilson
for his presentation at the Alaska Native Studies Conference 2016

Shawn's message shows what growing and sharing knowledge looks like. The animation evolved through telephone conversations.

My understanding of the similarity between Indigenous peoples way of thinking can be best stated as being circular and egalitarian. This circular thought is in contrast with the dominant society's hierarchical way of thinking...

What becomes important then in this circular worldview is your relationship with an idea, or how you view it...

What is important here is that spirituality is your relationship to the universe around you. It is the relationship again that is important, rather than the objective form that this relationship chooses to manifest itself (that is what religion is). My relationship to the universe is unique to myself, and it would be unrealistic to expect anyone else to share exactly the same relationship. Thus Indigenous spirituality could be defined as Indigenous peoples unique relationship with their universe.

Shawn Wilson, Indigenous Canadian scholar, 2015
Recognising the importance of spirituality in Indigenous learning

Eva Cox (left) speaks with Lisa Roberts.

I recognise, in Eva Cox's 1995 Boyer Lectures, "A Truly Civil Society", the spiral in Shawn Wilson's message from 2016, "Sharing and Growing Knowledge":

Imagine a spiral in which each circle unfolds into wider circles. This is a metaphor for a society which expands into ever broader circles so all can be part of the whole. (Cox, 1995. p.34)

In 2021 this image evolved from conversations with Indigenous Australian software engineer Cat Kutay: a blue spiral that signifies flows of Indigenous knowledge that come from lands and waterways, breaking through an orange grid that signifies colonial frameworks opening up to two-way learning and teaching through Indigenous cultural practices and the scientific method.

Now, in the wake of this year's Australian Indigenous Voice referendumdefeat, the interactive installation "Portrait of Community" evolves through further conversations with the aim of disrupting the privileging individualism over community, broadcasting over listening, and material gain over understanding and sharing knowledge for the common good. Living Data contributors are invited to contribute to an installation that engages people physically and virtually, to respond to stories shared through Indigenous cultural knowledge and Western science, about disruptions to natural balance in nature. Portrait of Community contributes to a global movement of people coming together with their similar and different ways of processing information, to expand understanding and deepen respect for balance in nature and in human culture.