Filmmaker and poet Jazz Money will receive $25,000 to create a new audiovisual piece for the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) after being chosen for the institution’s RE/Vision Commission.
The announcement follows an expression of interest campaign for the government-supported project, which involves an Indigenous filmmaker collaborating with NFSA to offer a contemporary interpretation of Australia’s audio-visual heritage, within the UK/Australia Season cultural exchange theme of ‘Who Are We Now?’.
Money will now work closely with NFSA curatorial and technical experts on a piece titled Winhanganha – a Wiradjuri word that loosely translates to ‘remember, know, think’ in English.
The Sydney-based artist, who received the State Library of Queensland’s David Unaipon Award and the Australian Council for the Arts’ First Nations Emerging Career Award in 2020, said the film would provide a “revisioning of Australian audiovisual history that centralises dance, performance, orality, gathering and protest”.
“The archive presents a place that is loaded with gaze and coloniality, yet records a link to us and our stories,” she said.
“Working with archival footage has led me to consider the relationship between our recorded knowledges, and how we create new futures through that which we inherit.
“My concept proposes an Indigenous perspective and lyrical journey through the NFSA archive, focussing on the human body as a location of expression and empowerment.”
The complete piece will receive premiere screenings at the British Film Institute in the UK, and Arc Cinema in Canberra, after which it will be brought into the NFSA collection and made available to the public.
NFSA CEO Patrick McIntyre said Money’s perspective would be a welcome addition to the collection.
“We love the idea of opening up the collection to audiovisual artists and practitioners,” he said.
“There is such a wealth of material in there that can be used to explore and express many different perspectives on Australian heritage and contemporary culture.
“As an artist on an exciting trajectory, we are delighted that Jazz Money will undertake this project with the NFSA and we look forward to premiering Winhanganha.”
The RE/Vision project is supported by the Australian Government through the Office for the Arts.