REturn
ask for nothing but give everything in return

The issue of Climate Change is on everyone’s minds these days.
Australian artist in residence Megan Evans is particularly concerned as she watches her country burn from afar while working here in Joshua Tree.

Megan’s work is a personal journey of decolonisation through an investigation of how she can take responsibility for her settler colonial ancestry. By placing herself in the frame, she acts out the absurdity and violence of privilege; the colonial gaze; and the invasion/decimation of land, languages and cultures for which the coloniser is responsible.

Megan aims to prompt questions rather than answers. Questions about how to unpack whiteness, colonisation and cultural prejudices, in the belief that until we reconcile with our colonial past we will be unable to learn from the depth of indigenous knowledges that may save us all.

REturn is a new body of work in which Megan reflects on the need to return to a simpler way of life, as well as a nod to the previous residency by this artist 6 years ago.

Megan Evans is an interdisciplinary artist, working in video, photography, sculpture, and installation. Megan’s work is informed by social issues, examining the nature of belonging and the impact of colonisation on identity, both self and nation. Megan began her creative life doing large political murals in the 1980’s during which time she met, and later married, Aboriginal artist and activist the late Les Griggs which informed her perspective on colonisation. Her practice ultimately involves a mix of conceptual issues and aesthetic concerns.

‘’My work aims to articulate complexities associated with colonisation. Much of my imagery combines original 19thcentury heritage objects including photographs, furniture and decorative arts with craft processes such as beading and needlepoint. These objects and processes, symbolic of both personal and universal histories, are combined to unsettle traditional understandings of ownership, memory and identity.’

Her career has spanned several decades and practices. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally, been published widely in books and journals and been awarded international residencies. Recent major exhibitions include SQUATTERS AND SAVAGES with Peter Waples-Crowe, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Benalla Art Gallery and Blak Dot Gallery; PARLOUR, Art Gallery of Ballarat and THE OBSERVANCE OF OBJECTS at the Ballarat International FOTO Biennale.

Artist website: meganevansartist.com