Dominique Chen (Gamilaroi) and Libby Harward (Ngugi Quandamooka) are two First Nations women, mothers, artists and the creative minds behind The Blak Laundry. Chen works mostly in conceptual, installation and performative mediums in addition to completing a PhD. Whilst Harward, the Director of Munimba-ja Art Centre, explores ideas that are politically charged, often centring around decolonisation. Based on Jinibara and Kabi Kabi Countries on the Sunshine Coast Hinterland, both women continue their individual arts practice whilst collaborating on larger projects.
The Blak Laundry is a pop-up, functional laundromat and living artwork. The laundromat is run by and for First Nations people, a safe space to pop a load on and delve into the social and political landscape, to agitate and connect with community. The Blak Laundry doubles as an exhibition space, a place for storytelling and even DJ sets! It was first launched as part of the Horizon Festival in 2023 and has gone on to tour more festivals since. All funds raised are reinvested into First Nations people, artists, reparative justice, and social and political change.
In this Colour Box Studio interview, Chen and Harward share their thoughts on being born into a body that is politicised from birth, flipping the colonial lens and their future plans to make The Blak Laundry a permanent fixture.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.
We are First Nations women, mothers and artists. Dom is Gamilaroi and lectures within the Bachelor of Contemporary Indigenous Art (CAIA)/Griffith University, and Libby is Ngugi Quandamooka, and Director of Munimba-ja Art Centre. We live on Jinibara and Kabi Kabi Countries on the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. We both have independent arts practices and have been working on collaborative projects together for a few years, the most recent of which is The Blak Laundry – a functional pop-up laundromat and living artwork, run by and for Aboriginal people.
How did you start your creative practice and why?
You could argue that our practice started when we were born—as Aboriginal people we are born into lives and bodies that are politicised, and as such, generate and create critical commentary and interactions around us. We also come from cultures that have centred creative practice in all aspects of life for millennia, so our creative practice is also embedded in our cultural lives, that has no start and end.
In terms of our practice within what you could call contemporary art:
Libby – I have a background in theatre and street art. In 2015 I did an artist camp with Jo-anne Dreissens through Gold Coast City Council and was mentored by Fiona Foley where my work took a turn towards performance interventions and installations on Country. These works engage a continual process of re-calling – re-hearing – re-mapping – re-contextualising – to de-colonise cultural landscapes, utilising low and high-tech media with elements of sound, image, installation and performance, to engage directly with politically charged ideas of national and international significance.
Dom – I started my practice in photography, and then moved into more conceptual, installation and performative work. Being a part of Situate Art in Festivals Lab through Salamanca Arts in 2016 really helped expand my practice into new and experimental spaces. I really love creative communication in all forms, and I’ve always had a desire to understand and explore the world (both internal and external) through creative modes, that for me have a bit more power, insight, and abilities in sharing stories and creating change.
Where did you grow up and how has it influenced your practice?
We both grew up on Yugerra/Turrbal Country, Meeanjin Brisbane. Growing up in a place you are always being influenced by the Country, but also the strong community of Blakfellas that are and have been influential in paving the way for artists like us, supporting and inspiring us in our practice. We are really lucky to have some amazing and world renown Blak artists living in Brisbane, as well as having The Bachelor of Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art—the only entirely First Nations developed and taught art program for First Nations people in the country, located there as well.
Tell us about your past creative projects. What has been a highlight so far?
Libby – As a Ngugi woman whose Ancestral lands and waters are Mulgumpin (Moreton Island) in the Quandamooka (Moreton Bay Area), my process is one of simultaneously listening, calling out to, knowing and understanding Country.
Major recent works prior to THE BLAK LAUNDRY developed on Jinibara Country are ALREADY OCCUPIED a series developed on Yugambeh Country (Gold Coast), Quandamooka Country (Moreton Bay), Yuggera Country (Brisbane), Naarm (Melbourne) Berlin (Germany) and DABIL BUNG (Broken Water a series of intsallations and film works including a durational and immersive black feminist installation about broken water-ways and Indigenous water sovereignty; developed through conversations with First Nations people along the Bidgee and Barka (Murray-Darling River system) and “Already Occupied” an ongoing contemporary art project that explores Aboriginal sovereignty through the use of everyday signage – such as those used for traffic control. The project employs humour, language and materiality to spark conversations about Country and the artist’s connection to it. “Already Occupied” recodes signs of construction/destruction and “safety” to privilege an Aboriginal frame of reference. In this project I use hi-vis to reveal a language which has always occupied this continent.
Dom – For the last few years, and particularly since becoming a mum, I have really enjoyed working collaboratively, and being able to bring my practice into more alignment with my family and cultural values and realities. Working with Tom Blake as part of MOMO-DOTO on a sound/performance work for the Unconformity Festival on Lutruwita/Tasmania’s west coast, working with my partner Sam Chen and little son on a sculptural work for the Strand Ephemera sculpture prize, and more recently working with Catilin Franzmann and Libby on relational and socially engaged works around the Bunya tree, have been really rewarding and special. I’m currently doing a PhD in relational creative practice and urban Aboriginal food growing, which has been an amazing journey, trying to hold space for cultural practices as art practices outside of mainstream, art institutional views and gatekeeping around what Indigenous art is and can be.
The Blak Laundry has been a highlight for the both of us, because it’s a very generous, culturally centred and autonomous space through which we can leave and breath our cultural values, on our terms, while still making accessible and cutting edge art.
Tell us about your current project?
The Blak Laundry is a functional pop-up laundromat and living artwork that was launched as part of the Horizon Festival in 2023. We have since toured the work to The Woodford Folk Festival, and ‘taken over’ Richard Bell’s Embassy as part of the ProppaNOW OCCURRENT AFFAIR exhibition at the Sunshine Coast University Art Gallery. The Blak Laundry is a space where you can wash your clothes, engage in critical conversation, performances and ‘agitations’, interact with art objects, and become a part of an ever-evolving socially and politically engaged artwork. As an autonomous and culturally-centred ‘Blak space’, The Blak Laundry responds to, and reclaims agency within arts and business markets that continue to disenfranchise, disinfect and compromise our cultural ethics and ways of working. We look to make money through the machines to reinvest in First Nations people, artists, reparative justice, and social and political change.
Who or what inspires your practice?
Firstly, we are incredibly inspired by the many staunch and amazing Blak artists that have gone before us and that have paved the way for what we do, as well as our colleagues, peers and communities.
Our cultural lives within oppressive, destructive and absurd colonial systems inspire us, as well as a desire to use our art practice for healing and reparative action, justice and education. We love making work that is accessible and brings people together, and brings some humour and lightness to what is usually an extractive and overloaded existence—making ourselves laugh gives us good energy to take on the social, political and cultural issue that are constant in our lives.
Where do you feel most creative and why?
With The Blak Laundry, we feel most creative when we are together, and we are talking/venting about what is relevant and happening in our lives—our work in the Laundry then becomes a response or processes of those feelings and happenings.
What do you hope audiences take from your work?
The best compliment is the involvement of our forbearers and peers within the work. We want audiences to flip the colonial lens and see the ongoing oppressive systems that still operate within the colonial landscape.
What gets you through creative challenges or tough industry times?
We don’t often have creative challenges, as both individually and together we are always churning thoughts and ideas, and the development of The Blak Laundry is a pretty free-flowing, continuous process. In terms of tough industry times, again the Laundry, as a functional laundromat business that is the artwork, gives us more agency and autonomy to not be at the mercy of the broad lack of support for the arts. The hardest challenge for us is just getting the capital to start our permanent Laundry Business so we can fund our own and other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Artists practises as together we have a lot of cultural capital but due to land theft we have no financial capital.
What future projects are you looking forward to?
We are currently fundraising for The Blak Laundry, to raise money for a permanent laundromat that will resource our pop-up touring work. This is an exciting opportunity to really grow the Laundry and continue the work and service we are doing in the community. We’d love anyone to support us and help share the load through our Pozible campaign
We’re also looking forward to exploring and talking more critically to capitalism within the Laundry, as well as issues of water use and water sovereignty.
Whose work are you digging at the moment?
We love seeing work from First Nations artists that is experimental and also work that is healing and reparative in a cultural sense.
There are many artists we dig atm but we have to give a shout out to Archie Moore who just won The Golden Lion at Venice Biennale. We think this award has done so much to show us that humble, hard consistent artmaking can make a difference
Where can we find and follow you online?
You can follow The Blak Laundry via our socials – @the_blak_laundry or facebook.com/theblaklaundry or via our website www.theblaklaundry.com.au.
You can follow our individual practices at @walkingstory_yanay and @libby_harward_art