Monday mornings' mocha fuelled lecture.

So today we had a visiting lecturer to give us a talk on Feminism art. It was a really thought provoking lecture dealing with transnational feminism. We watched a short film about the cross racial situation of feminism particular to Australia, but also encompassing a sub genre of the universal mother/daughter relationship.

The film began with a jolly black man named Jimmy Little dressed in a typical western outfit singing a hymn, later I learned that this chap was part of the 'stolen generation' in which people of aboriginal descent were conditioned to breed out their roots as part of a Christianity campaign. Apparently it takes 8 generations to fully breed out genes aboriginal genes. The film commenced into several scenes depicting what seems to be a mother/daughter relationship in which the daughter is in a position to care for the elderly mother. In one of the scenes the 'carer' was feeding the mother until getting frustrated with her pace of chewing and eating the remainder of the food herself, I found this scene particularly hard to swallow as I have a lot of experience with England's care system and I'm deeply aware of it's flaws and the consequences of poor care. A great deal of this film hit a nerve with me as from my western point of view it was dabbling in issues of being a carer and how that forced lifestyle can affect your state of mind and who you are as a person, or for that matter, how much of yourself you lose due to sheer dedication of giving your life to someone else.The topic of carers is a delicate one, as it is a very deep demonstration of love and sacrifice.

I did get a little confused initially as the 'mother' was white and the 'daughter' was dark skinned, I later learned that the relationship was brought about by the situation of the policy in which aboriginals were sent to white family's to be bred free of their genes. Throughout the film there was no dialogue just sound, words not needed I guess. I was very aware that I received the visual information and interpreted it in a much different way then someone would if they viewed it coming from the background depicted. There were several emotions ploughed through this film, that of frustration, sadness, burden, and loss. On the whole it made me uncomfortable and hit me on a level I actively try to suppress.

I left the lecture with a deep sadness, and I carried this cloud around with me for most of the day. It was an excellent piece of artwork dealing with culturally specific issues, local and national genocide, relationships between mother and daughter, carer and Carree. I plodded over to the student union for carby sustenance and the whole theme of the morning triggered a long conversation with Louise about life and relationships, emotions and people. I wish more artwork had this effect on me.