Artist Bindi Cole explores the sistagirl community of the Tiwi islands in a exhibition showing at PCP this month. Cole’s showcase is an arresting series of stylised portraits of transgender women living on the Tiwi Islands, just off the coast of Darwin. The Melbourne-based artist had been exploring what it meant to be Aboriginal before she was introduced to Tiwi Sistagirls culture by an indigenous drag queen in Victoria. Cole spoke to OUTinPerth from Melbourne about her exhibition.
‘I was interested in breaking down stereotypes of what it means to be Aboriginal,’ said Cole, who has an indigenous heritage.
Cole explained the current Aboriginal stereotype was not reflective of the reality of contemporary Aboriginal culture which is actually ‘very diverse’.At an Aboriginal festival in Melbourne, the artist was introduced to Jason De Santis aka Foxxy Empire, a Northern Territory drag queen.
Enticed, Cole immediately organised a photo shoot with Foxxy within weeks of meeting her. It was in these weeks that Cole learnt of the small community of sistagirls living on the Tiwi Islands, a region better known for its AFL players.
‘Working with the broader community was tough because not everybody is proud of the Sistagirls; their position on Tiwi is full of conflict,’ she said.
‘They’re not fully accepted and I guess there are a lot of people on Tiwi who don’t want Tiwi to be known for the sistagirls.
‘They’re happy for it to be known for the footy but not the Sistagirls.’
Following a year of work and negotiations, Cole received the funding and permission to fly up to the Tiwi Islands for four weeks and started work with De Santis on this ground-breaking exhibition.
‘The Sistagirls aren’t necessarily drag queens because they’re living as women, essentially,’ Cole said.
‘But they’re not the most feminine women; I mean it’s not the most feminine place. Even the girls there get around in footy shorts.
‘Working with the Sistagirls was really, really amazing. They’re just so strong and fragile all at once. Immediately I was taken by this notion of this phenomenon of transgender existence.
‘I’m not transgender or gay myself but I don’t know, I just kind of fell in love with this idea of women that existed and how again they reconciled their identity and how they totally fell outside the stereotype of what it means to be Aboriginal.’
Cole is quick to establish the project is fiction; it is staged and it is fantasy. ‘I’m not a documentary photographer, I’m an artist and what I do as an artist is create a narrative,’ she said.
‘Ultimately it is fantasy because my first love was the drag queens, you know, these images are very much in drag.’
‘They’re my fantasies but they’re also fantasies of perhaps what the girls would like to get around in and be; as oppose to what they actually are on an everyday basis.’
While Cole has stayed in touch with the Tiwi Sistagirls, she found the connection she shared with them was about discovering how to become comfortable in your skin.
Sponsored by the Lhere Artepe Aboriginal Corporation, Sistagirls opens at the Perth Centre for Photography from July 10-31.
Benn Dorrington
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