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.