Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis
(Dis)connected to Country

01.03.2024 — 24.03.2024

as part of PHOTO 2024


Exhibition opens Friday 1 March, 2024

Continues until Sunday 24 March, 2024

Mapping the intertwined natures of self and Country.

Australia has a complex history tainted with colonialism, the mass genocide of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and forced assimilation into the settler colony. The many products of colonialism are still prevalent and thriving today.

(Dis)connected to Country maps the intersections of place, identity, and family, and the way that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have inextricable connection to the land, as Country and self are intertwined and inseparable. Working with oral histories, the project reflects on the traumatic history of Australia with specific focus on Pitta Pitta Country and the removal of Romanis’ great-grandmother in the early 1900s during the Stolen Generations.

This show aims to disrupt and subvert colonial approaches to image-making and mapping systems, highlighting the omission of significant Indigenous Knowledges. The work critically analyses archive, representation, and new technology, and grapples with the idea that photographs have their own agency. (Dis)connected to Country is a project of revival, healing and mapping back to Pitta Pitta Country.



Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis (born Geelong, 1998, lives and works Naarm/Melbourne) is a proud Pitta Pitta woman, emerging artist, researcher and curator based on Kulin Land. After completing an Honours in Photography degree at RMIT in 2020, she commenced a PhD at Monash in 2021 through the Wominjeka Djeembana Research Lab. Her work is inextricably intertwined with her identity as a Pitta Pitta woman and explores the complexities of her lived experience and the continuing negative impacts of colonisation in what is now known as Australia.

Image: Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis, Unknown Coordinates 2022. Courtesy the artist.

(Dis)connected to Country by Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis is presented as part of PHOTO 2024




Talk: Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis and Dr Peta Clancy

02.03.2024

as part of PHOTO 2024


Artist talk Saturday 2 March, 2024, 1-2pm

In-conversation with artist Jahkarli Romanis facilitated by Dr Peta Clancy.

Pitta Pitta woman Jahkarli Romanis discusses her approach to the photographic medium through her project (Dis)connected to Country which is a revival, healing and mapping back to Pitta Pitta Country.



Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis (born Geelong, 1998, lives and works Naarm/Melbourne) is a proud Pitta Pitta woman, emerging artist, researcher and curator based on Kulin Land. After completing an Honours in Photography degree at RMIT in 2020, she commenced a PhD at Monash in 2021 through the Wominjeka Djeembana Research Lab. Her work is inextricably intertwined with her identity as a Pitta Pitta woman and explores the complexities of her lived experience and the continuing negative impacts of colonisation in what is now known as Australia.


Peta Clancy (born Bangerang, 1970, lives and works Naarm/Melbourne) works collaboratively and performatively with and on Country. She creates manually manipulated photographs that layer time, past and present, to re-construct and bring to light hidden histories of Country in a contemporary setting. Australian historical photographs of landscape/place/Country tend to frame Country as an object to capture or obtain. Clancy explores other ways of knowing Country through photography. In 2023 she was awarded a Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts. She is a Senior Lecturer and researcher in the Wominijeka Djeembana Indigenous research lab at MADA, Monash University and is represented by Dominik Mersch Gallery.



Image: Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis, Unknown Coordinates III 2022. Courtesy the Artist.

(Dis)connected to Country by Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis is presented as part of PHOTO 2024