Arts This Week – Our Unbroken Line: The Griffiths Family
By Ben Larsen
Ben Larsen
The Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection is inviting people to see their exhibition, Our Unbroken Line: The Griffiths family, before it’s too late. For Arts This Week, we spoke with Laura Snyder and Margo Smith, who work at the museum.
Laura Snyder
Hi, my name is Laura Snyder and I’m the Public Engagement and Communications Coordinator at Kluge-Ruhe.
Margo Smith
I’m Margo Smith, and I’m the director of Kluge-Ruhe. The exhibition, Our Unbroken Line: The Griffiths Family is currently on display in the focus gallery at Kluge-Ruhe until December 8. It is an exhibition that is associated with our Artist Residency Program. And Dora Griffiths and her sister Jan Griffiths both artists, and Dora was the curator of this exhibition just completed a two week visit at the University of Virginia as part of that residency.
Laura Snyder
So this exhibition features artworks from three generations of women, artists in the Griffiths family. So Jan and Dora were able to visit us as part of the artist residency program. We also have an amazing large scale work on paper by their mother, Peggy Griffiths, which really details the experience of being in her country. And we also have works by Dora, the curators nieces, as well as multiple pieces by Jan Griffiths, both on ceramic and on paper. The pieces themselves are incredibly colorful and vibrant and joyful, almost looking and yet they hold for the artists, a lot of history, a lot of story that has to do with painful events that have happened in history of Australia, and they relate also to events here in our own country.
Margo Smith
Today, President Biden is making a formal apology to First Nations Americans for the boarding school era and the atrocities committed against Native Americans during that period when children were taken away from their families and placed in boarding schools through a project to assimilate First Nations people. And it’s very similar to what happened in Australia, and especially in Western Australia, where the Griffiths family are from, where children, often light skinned Aboriginal children, were removed from their families and placed in institutions, boarding schools in an effort to assimilate them as well. So First Nations, people across the globe you know, have experienced this, and it is remarkable that today actually marks the day that President Biden is making a formal apology for this on behalf of the government.
Laura Snyder
The artists of Our Unbroken Line: The Griffiths family, they shared with us a little bit about the importance of having an unbroken line of culture that’s passed down from one generation to the next, how they have been able to do that within their own family, and how important it is for them to pass down art making and all of the knowledge that comes along with that, and the stories associated with the pieces. There’s a beautiful work by Jan Griffiths in the exhibition that’s a work on paper that shows water lily pads that has to do with an important story from her family, and it’s titled History Beneath The Beauty, which is really a theme of this exhibition, how many families in the area of Western Australia in Kununurra, where the Griffiths family lives, were not able to pass down cultural knowledge from one generation to the next.
Ben Larsen
And for those who are not as familiar, could you tell us more about the work that you all do here?
Margo Smith
Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection is, of course, part of the University of Virginia. We’re the only museum in the United States that’s dedicated to Indigenous Australian Arts and Cultures. We do exhibitions. We do a lot of programming throughout the year. We have classes for UVA students, both guest lecturing and other courses. We have interns from other classes working here at the museum, and we bring a lot of Indigenous Australian artists and knowledge holders to the United States to deliver their own knowledge with students at the university, faculty, staff, of course, and the public. In addition to Our Unbroken Line, we’ve recently reinstalled one of the galleries of Shifting Ground with artworks that haven’t been seen before, that were recent gifts to Kluge-Ruhe from printmaker Basil Hall. So even if people have come to shifting ground since it opened in March, they can come back to Kluge-Ruhe and have a new experience here and see some new work. And then next March, we’ll be changing the whole main exhibition to an amazing, colorful exhibition of paintings in acrylic on canvas from the Spinifex Arts Project. So that’s something to look forward to in March.
Ben Larsen
For those who are interested, how can people get involved and learn more?
Laura Snyder
Yes, so we have a volunteer program. We love to have volunteers join us in everything that we do and really use their abilities towards being involved with the museum. So please get in touch. If you’re interested in volunteering with us, you can find out about our upcoming events on the calendar section of our website kluge-ruhe.org
Ben Larsen
The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 4pm and offers free daily tours from 10:30 to 1:00. You can sign up or learn more at kluge-ruhe.org. Arts This Week is supported by the UVA Arts Council and Piedmont Virginia Community College. PVCC Arts presents a rich array of dance, music, theater, and visual arts programming. Learn more@pvcc.edu
