The art of colonisation and decolonisation: the possibilities of Indigenist Standpoint Pedagogy and intersectionality to dismantle rural settler futurities through art practice as research

Within Australia, visual representations, and art shape understandings of and connections to rural spaces and places. Art also defines individual and collective identities in relation to land. These relationships and identities, however, are restricted by notions of ‘white possession’, colonial myth, and fantasy. These colonial logics seek to maintain power over First Nations peoples, the environment, more-than-human species, minority groups and individuals, and women, reproducing oppressive epistemologies and ontologies associated with current climate disaster. First Nations scholars argue social and ecological justice begins with examination of self and dominant culture. Used to understand and articulate the researcher/artists’ subjective experiences, ‘art practice as research’ is a method of creative and cultural inquiry through art-making. Adopting intersectionality and Phillips’ Indigenist Standpoint Pedagogy as a methodological framework, this art-practice as research examines contested histories and public subjectivities. This practice-led and truth-telling approach offers a model for critically reflexive practices in dismantling settler futurities.