Deadly. Fabulous.
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When he saw More Than 1 Nation projected onto Lydiard Street’s historic streetscape, Pitcha Makin Fellas’ Thomas Marks welled up.
The arts collective had two installations in Saturday’s White Night Ballarat – one projected onto the former Bank of New South Wales on Lydiard Street South and another, blackface (real face) on the south end of Lydiard Street.
Marks, a Kurnia Gunnai man, and Pitcha Makin Fella and Gunditjamarra elder Uncle Ted Laxton watched More Than 1 Nation from the former Post Office Building.
“It’s absolutely fabulous. It’s the only way you can describe it, it’s fabulous,” Uncle Ted said.
Uncle Ted said people were transfixed by the projection – the product of months of work.
More Than 1 Nation celebrates the many Aboriginal nations, as well as the multicultural make up of Ballarat.
“The country is still the same, the country hasn’t changed, we haven’t changed.
“Europeans have changed everything on us. We are more than one nation, we will remain more than one nation – we are a lot of little nations.”
Painter and Gunditjamarra man Peter Clarke said the two Pitcha Makin Fellas artworks were “deadly”.
“It’s taken a long time but it’s really important to see this.
“I’m an employment consultant at Saint Lawrence at Armstrong Street and I deal with a lot of different colours of brothers and sisters.
“At the end of the day, more than one nation, I’m covered in black but I’m colour blind.”