BINDI COLE

Bindi’s work exposes the latent and unspoken power dynamics of Australian culture in the here and now. She subtly but powerfully reveals some uncomfortable truths about the fundamental disconnection between who we are - the communities and identities by which we shape our sense of self - and how the prevailing culture attempts to place and define us.

2009 was a busy year for Bindi that culminated in winning the Deadly Art Award as part of the Victorian Indigenous Art Awards. Earlier that year, Cole was funded by the Australia Council and Arts Victoria to create a series of highly stylised portraits of a community of Tiwi Island Transgender men that identify as women called the Sistagirls. On either side of the Sistagirl project, Cole held a range of exhibitions including ‘Big Blak Heart’ a video installation that was projected into large scale windows, a group show at Linden Gallery entitled ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’, an exhibition of her ‘Post Us’ series in Japan and the showing of her ‘Not Really Aboriginal’ series at the Australian Centre for Photography. Cole has also been very busy attending two artist residencies including the renowned two-week Indigelab with facilitators Wesley Enoch, Brook Andrew and Darlene Johnson.

In 2008, Cole was a finalist in the 2008 Victorian Indigenous Art Awards (Boscia Galleries, Melbourne) and the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin). Her recent projects include Not Really Aboriginal, which explored how black you need to look to be considered Aboriginal and how white Aboriginals cross the cultural divide, A Time Like This which focused on Aboriginal woman’s place in the big women’s movements throughout the last century and particularly celebrated the centenary of women’s suffrage in Victoria and lastly, a solo exhibition entitled Post Us in which Cole recreated posters from the late 1800’s through to the 1950’s with an Aboriginal twist.

In 2007, she won the Victorian Indigenous Art Award for photography and was a finalist in both the National Photographic Portrait Prize (National Portrait Gallery, Canberra) and the William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize (Monash Gallery of Art Melbourne. Projects included a solo exhibition of her contemporary indigenous portraits at the Koorie Heritage Trust, Melbourne entitled Heart Strong, and the photography and artistic direction of Men In Black, a calendar of elite Aboriginal sports stars.

In 2004, Cole completed a Diploma in Applied Photography at Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE (NMIT), and in 2008 she commenced a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Fine Arts) at Ballarat University.