First Nations’ First Person is a series of talks and workshops hosted by the Sculpture and Spatial Practice Workshop bringing the School of Art and Design community into dialogue with prominent contemporary Australian First Nations’ artists and curators. As the first contributors to this series, Destiny Deacon and Virginia Fraser will engage a group of ANU students and staff in a workshop on their artistic processes.

Destiny Deacon, born 1957, Maryborough, Queensland; lives and works in Melbourne. Destiny Deacon, of the K’ua K’ua and Erub/Mer (Torres Strait) peoples, completed a Bachelor of Arts (Politics) at the University of Melbourne in 1979 and a Diploma of Education at La Trobe University in 1981. Her political artistic practice includes performative photographs, videos and installations that feature members of her community together with assorted black dolls and kitsch. Her work featured in Documenta 11, Kassel, Germany, 2002, and the 10th Bienal de La Habana, Cuba, 2010. The survey exhibition Destiny Deacon: Walk and Don’t Look Blak, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2004, toured to Melbourne, Noumea, Wellington and Tokyo.

Virginia Fraser (born Melbourne, Victoria, lives and works in Melbourne) is an artist, writer, editor and curator. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Media Arts) from Phillip Institute of Technology, Melbourne, and a Master of Fine Arts by research from the Victorian College of the Arts. Her art practice consists mainly of video, installation (often using light) and text-based works. She and Destiny Destiny Deacon have collaborated in various ways since the 1990s, and also have separate art practices.

The First Nations’ First Person lecture and workshop series is kindly supported by Visual Arts Endowment funding and the CASS Workshop Grant Scheme