search
Destiny Deacon
Bait Blak
2022–2023
Lightjet prints, aluminium composite panels, films, videos, lightbox and found images Dimensions variable
Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
Destiny Deacon is a multidisciplinary Indigenous artist descended from the KuKu Yalanji and Erub/Mer peoples of Far North Queensland and the Torres Strait Islands respectively. The site-specific installation Bait Blak (2022–2023) exposes the racialised clichés of Aboriginal peoples embedded in Australian society. Juxtaposing archival footage, found objects and the artist’s own photography, the installation evokes the disarming atmosphere of a haunted house, unfolding across several rooms.
Through staged photographs, close-up images of Black dolls, Aboriginalia, Koori kitsch and other found material, Deacon dramatises the misrepresentation
and discrimination that First Peoples confront daily.
