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Join us as we bring great photography by emerging and established photographers that explores ideas and our world through an annual festival of exhibitions, workshops and conversations led by Australian and international artists and thought-leaders. Head On Photo Festival is presented by the not-for-profit Head On Foundation.
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Breaking Silent Codes is an exhibition of portraits of First Nations women from across Australian and the Pacific who came together to share stories of cultural and spiritual responses to the issue of family & domestic violence and sexual assault in communities across Australia and the Pacific. In March 2020, the women travelled to New York to share their stories with women from across the globe. It provided a platform for women to discuss the ways in which community, religion, authority and family create silences around sexual assault and family & domestic violence.
In August 2018, UNSW Arts and Social Sciences, Women’s Legal Service NSW and the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence sponsored and hosted a unique forum of 42 Aboriginal, Torres Strait and Pacific Islander women intended to ‘Break Silent Codes’ and share stories of cultural and spiritual responses to the issue of sexual assault and family violence in communities across Australia and the Pacific.
The forum provided a platform for women to discuss the ways in which community, religion, authority and family create silences around sexual assault and family violence. There are many injustices experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait and Pacific Islander communities. For a long time, it has seemed that all other matters of injustice are more important than the sexual assault and domestic violence in communities. Women experience this as a silencing of issues important to their spiritual and physical well-being.
Through this book, we share with you the stories of this gathering which has now become a movement of its own for First Nations women across Australia and the Pacific.
A multi-award-winning artist, Belinda Mason has worked with emerging artists with disability or disadvantage to create acclaimed collaborative and inclusive multimedia exhibitions for the past two decades. In 2016 & 2018, Belinda presented at a parallel event of the United Nation Commission on the Status of Women in New York, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disability in Geneva 2016 and World Conference on Indigenous Persons in New York in 2014, United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva 2013.
“The blanket of colonisation has been woven on violence and oppression has denied us all a kind truth. The impact of broken culture and languages and spiritual practices has left a deafening silence around violence in our intimate relationships causing violent assaults and sexual abuse.
Kindness is a movement. Sharing it is accessing your basic human right to personal and communal safely. We need to own our stories and come together to appreciate each other and listen. Violence hurts, it hurts society, its hurts families and it hurts you and I.
My Grandmothers were stolen from their families and enslaved, their culture and language denied. As a young person who witnessed family violence, I would never have believed I would be here today.
Understand that someone may not be ready to leave, and be kind and understand, don’t carry judgement or resentment of someone else’s journey. Give them a place to speak openly without being afraid or judged.
I said to my good friend, ‘I can’t live in this oppressive state of mind and not do nothing about the violence we are experiencing, personally and in society’. So begins the change when knowledge is learned and processed. Holding onto anger and resentment isn’t worth it.
No one person can be what you need to be or feel what you need to feel. Find safety within yourself.”
Dixie Link Gordon
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Arts and Social Sciences, UNSW Sydney
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