Cloud & Empire

Michael Riley is one of Australia's most respected contemporary Indigenous photo-media artists. His work is a poignant and poetic exploration of Aboriginal life and history.

cloud investigates the artist's enforced Christian upbringing and the wider impact of such guardianship on Indigenous communities throughout Australia. The work addresses the process of assimilation, another term for the removing of Indigenous peoples onto reserves to 'die out,' and their imposed conversion to Christianity.

Accompanying cloud is Empire, the highly acclaimed 1997 film directed by Riley for The Festival of the Dreaming, with music by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.