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The Burnum Burnum Declaration England, 26th January, 1988

I, Burnum Burnum, being a nobleman of ancient Australia do hereby take posession of England on behalf of the Aboriginal people. In claiming this colonial outpost, we wish no harm to you natives, but assure you that we are here to bring you good manners, refinement and an opportunity to make a Koompartoo - ‘a fresh start’. Henceforth, an Aboriginal face shall appear on your coins and stamps to signify our sovreignty over this domain. For the more advanced, bring the complex language of the Pitjantjajara; we will teach you how to have a spiritual relationship with the Earth and show you how to get bush tucker.

We do not intend to souvenir, pickle and preserve the heads of your 2000 of your people, nor to publicly display the skeletal remains of your Royal Highness, as was done to our Queen Truganninni for 80 years. Neither do we intend to poison your water holes, lace your flour with strychnine or introduce you to highly toxic drugs. Based on our 50,000 year heritage, we acknowledge the need to preserve the Caucasian race as of interest to antiquity, although we may be inclined to conduct experiments by measuring the size of your skulls for levels of intelligence. We pledge not to sterilise your women, nor to separate your children from their families. We give an absolute undertaking that you shall not be placed onto the mentality of government handouts for the next five generations but you will enjoy the full benefits of Aboriginal equality. At the end of two hundred years, we will make a treaty to validate occupation by peaceful means and not by conquest.

Finally, we solemnly promise not to make a quarry of England and export your valuable minerals back to the old country Australia, and we vow never to destroy three-quarters of your trees, but to encourage Earth Repair Action to unite people, communities, religions and nations in a common, productive, peaceful purpose.

Alternative Artifacts

Mitski - “Happy” 

A second video from Mitski’s Puberty 2, and another video untangling the complicated nature of being desired in America as an Asian American girl. The video for “Happy” is gorgeously stylized all around, but I particularly love the costuming. The main character is an Asian American woman, who is married to a white man who is always cheating on her with blonde chicks. She flits between Western garb and the qipao throughout the video. The qipao is such a classic marker of Chinese femininity. A woman in a qipao is consistently explored imagery in director Wong Kar Wai’s work. “Happy” seems to draw explicitly from his work, especially in shots where the main character is in a qipao – there is cigarette smoke, backlighting, and framing of the woman sitting alone in a qipao by doorways and entrances.

I’ve bitched about Wong Kar Wai before – I think he’s phenomenal, but the way that he has become one of the few Asian directors worthy of Western coverage rubs me the wrong way. He’s an art house director in China! His work is disconnected from most ordinary citizens who go to the movie theatre. That being said, as an Asian American, I devoured his work in my teenage and college years. I didn’t know how better to connect with a motherland I had never truly known but was curious about, and I had a sense of pride about who my parents were and their story. I wanted to believe that Art with a capital A could be made by people who looked like me. 

Lin Fengmian (Chinese, 1900-1991) 

Beauty defying Tyranny, N/D. Series of Opera.

Capitol Cinema - Phnom Penh, Cambodia

The former Capitol cinema is located in street 19 in the Doun Penh district of Phnom Penh. The cinema was built in 1964 and designed by renowned architect Vann Molyvann.