Ngaya (I am)

‘A cut-and-paste, punked-up look at my Country’ is how Peter Waples-Crowe describes his five-minute video installation Ngaya (I am), a self-portrait of the artist as a queer Ngarigo person from the Snowy Mountains region of south-eastern NSW.

Mixing images of people and landscape with song and dance – and humour – this compelling video installation explores the multiple identities of Waples-Crowe, who was adopted and raised in the Illawarra region on the NSW South Coast and later reconnected with his Ngarigo heritage. The work reinstates the artist in the landscape from which he was removed. More broadly, it asserts the ongoing presence of the Ngarigo people in the land that still holds their stories despite pervasive Western imagery that would deny their existence, language and connection to Country.

On display at the Museum of Sydney, Ngaya (I am) is accompanied by historical photographs of the Snowy Mountains region held in the State Archives Collection.

Image: Still from Ngaya (I am), Artist Peter Waples-Crowe Language Group: Ngarigo, Southeast region. With Rhian Hinkley and composer Harry Covill. Commissioned by ACMI.