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Ecological Solidarities: Artistic Responses to the Christchurch Attack
Abstract
This presentation looks at artistic reactions to the Christchurch attacks in New Zealand and the concurrent appropriation of Indigenous and Muslim religious iconography and rituals, reading these works as exemplifying Evelyn Alsultany’s “diversity patriotism.” It then explores how Indigenous and SWANA diasporic populations in Australia and New Zealand forge solidarities, exemplified by representations of natural imagery integrating ecological embeddedness, thereby extending gestures of hospitality alongside acknowledgment of the intrinsic value of place. Australian responses to the attacks include a large-scale image painted by artist Loretta Lizzio on a 25-meter-tall silo in Brunswick, Melbourne, depicting New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern embracing a Muslim woman in a hijab. Artist Pat Campbell redrew New Zealand’s traditional silver fern emblem to show Muslim worshippers in different stages of prayer in response to the terrorist attack. Najwa Majar writes about the “neoliberal revision” of Muslim women in US culture and politics where they are “increasingly touted as US civic and market icons,” meaning they are visibly Muslim because they wear hijab, but participating in secular state and market institutions (309). She highlights how this image intertwines patriotism with Islamic practice, even as the state exercises racial control over Muslims. Majar’s argument seamlessly applies to the appropriation of Muslim identity in these two images. The appropriation of the silver fern as a symbol of the nation-state overlooks its original significance to Māori, who regarded the graceful form of the fronds as emblematic of strength, tenacious resistance, and enduring vitality. How do these artists and writers incorporate natural imagery differently, as a means of ecological continuity rather than dominance, and how do we read this in terms of national identity? As examples, a collective of women from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands, featuring Nyunmiti Burton, crafted artworks depicting the honey grevillea shrub, a native plant known for its winter blooms of yellow and green flowers, which they presented as gifts to Muslim communities in Adelaide and New Zealand. Further, the work of Wellington-based Somali poet Khadro Mohamed reflects the influence of the Somali oral tradition, enriched by her experiences on the coast of Te Whanganui-a-Tara. She draws inspiration from Islam and Somali culture, as well as her whakapapa, a reference to traditional mātauranga Māori knowledge. Mohamed’s use of this kind of ancestral layering in her poetry is only one example of diasporic artists bypassing white colonial cultures to connect with their Native and Indigenous hosts.
Discipline
Anthropology
Geographic Area
Other
Sub Area
None