Miss represented stories
Jessicah Briggs is a young 18-year-old proud Gomeroi woman from Moree NSW currently studying Primary education at the University of Technology Sydney.
Receiving a boarding school scholarship from Yalari to attend Abbotsleigh School for Girls in Sydney, she completed her high school education with a strong interest in all art forms. “I chose Art as one of my electives. I had a very supportive art teacher as part of my year 12 HSC artwork. I chose to submit a series of photographs titled 'Miss Represented Stories', an artwork that is centrally motivated by our history and the impact of colonization on my people.”
Influenced by Cindy Sherman and our very own Aboriginal artist Tracy Moffat, Miss Represented Stories is a series of photographs of where Jessicah turned the camera on herself as the model to portray the profound impacts of colonization. This series of photographs is a distillation of Australia’s recent history - the complicated relationship between Aboriginal people and non-Indigenous people since colonisation and the impacts that it has had. Also, inspired by Michael Cook and contemporary Aboriginal artists who created the series of artwork Miss-REPRESENT Megan Cope, Hannah Bronte, Katie West, Lorna Munro, Merindah Donnelly and Tjanara Talbot, Jessicah turned the camera on herself in various guises to extend role playing whilst questioning the powerful machinery and makeup that lays behind the countless images circulating in an incessantly public, “plugged in” culture.
The series comprises of 8 pictures, each individually telling a story. “I included themes of slavery, frontier wars, the forced removal of our children, attempts of assimilation and the adverse effects of the dispossession of culture, land and language,” says Jessicah.
“I was very honored and proud to receive a place in the Art Express exhibition for my work 'Miss Represented Stories", as it had the opportunity of being displayed publicly with the understanding that nominated works are those that have been identified through a rigorous examination process.”
Art express is an art exhibition that occurs annually, which features a selection of artworks created for the HSC examination in Visual Arts. Jessicah’s artwork will be exhibited at the Moree Plains Art Gallery now until 27 May and at Grafton Art Gallery from 16 June to 29 July.
“Having the ability to create a Year 12 major work, gave me the opportunity to combine my interests of art and photography but most importantly it enabled me to share my peoples and Australia's history through my lens.”
Images: Jessicah Brigss exhibitied at the Moree Plains Art Gallery