GABAN

GABAN
Theatre performance
Photo credits: Steve Dykes

Written and directed by Brook Andrew, GABAN is a post-traumatic play that was premiered within the Grand Court Galleries of the Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney. Gaban is a Wiradjuri word that means ‘strange’ and it describes the disconcerting experience that is the museum for many First Nations and Indigenous peoples. Summoning a number of interlinked stories concerning the mess of the colonial fall-out, the protagonists of GABAN are personifications of Powerful Objects – cultural objects retained in colonial collections – in dialogue with other characters who personify the institutional power of the museum. There are actions of amnesia, violence, repatriation and revenge in this story of re-awakening ancestral memories.

The House of GABAN company comprises of Rosell Flatley, Brian Fuata, Katy Green Loughrey, Dimitri Kleioris, Kameron Locke, Akala Newman, Budi Miller, Aaron Reeder, Red Rey, Benjamin Skepper, House of Slé (Davina, Fetu, Talo and Xuela), Georgia Taia, Latai Taumoepeau, Kilia Tipa and Olivia Xegas. Creative and production team include Paschal Daantos Berry, Jessica Neath and Cherie Schweitzer.

“The story of GABAN is filtered through the lens of an Indigenous narrative revealing the lies of the institution of archival art through the voice of the oppressed. Memory is invoked. It heals and empowers the marginalised while exposing and weakening the fragility of British logic. It is an entrance point for healing Blak and Brown bodies who are on their personal journeys of patching up the colonial holes excavated from the colonised parallax projected upon their cultures, psyches and ancestral lands.

Using the museum as a site specific performance space viscerally exposes the colonial dominance sutured within institutional and public spaces. The GABAN or The Strange is a Queering practice disrupting the senses. Powerful Objects and institutional concepts are enacted by Blak and Brown bodies. The semiotics are as jarring and disconcerting as acid poured on a polaroid photo. The audience’s senses are awakened by hearing and seeing representation physically embodied. Brook reveals the unspoken habits of the colonial gaze challenging the way we view art.”

Budi Miller, 2022

Art Gallery of NSW — 2-4 December 2022
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia