"We are here to say yes to your ideas and to help bring them to life" - Katherine Quigley on a new era for Backbone Arts

We made it through another apocalypse. 

 Apocalypse is taken from the Greek word, apokaloutein - meaning to uncover, to reveal. 2020 was not just a hard year for us, it was a year that truly gave the world 2020 vision. We saw all the cracks in the system and we saw just how broken our world is. The injustices exposed the disparity not just inherit in political powers, but also in how fractured and distant our community had become. Indeed 2020 was a time for great personal reflection, the fragility of our future put under a microscope and televised through our black mirrors: from the devastating impacts of climate change, a global pandemic and the straw that broke all of us, the tragic deaths of innocent people by those paid to protect us. 

 Artists, musicians, writers, film makers, were united in our fall. Silenced by the curtain that closed down not just our work but our access to communities, our connection with each other and our beloved audiences. We asked over and over - don’t you know how long it took to make that Netflix series you are binging? Don’t you know that was us? The ones you’ve left behind? 

 But our sorrows we soon learned were only there to drive us forward, to remain steadfast in our purpose to keep the music playing however we could, and to keep everyone safe and informed.

 Backbones 2020 program; Ngalamba Wiji Li Wunungu - is Yanuwa for, together we are strong. Our program this year and for each year to follow is guided by these words. This is how Backbone will move forward. 

 Mentoring is a key element to how we work. I am grateful to my mentor, Shellie Morris who shared with me the awe-inspiring cultures of the NT. I have a penchant for speaking in lyrics... every program theme has been lifted from an album - this one from Shellie Morris who worked with women across remote communities of the NT to create the album. There is a link to it on our website - absolutely stunning. Please listen. 

 When I was in Katherine, Shellie introduced me to Isa McDinny, one of the five remaining language speakers of Yanuwa, a language from Boraloola in the Gulf of the Northern Territory. Isa was so excited we were interested in using this language - I was just so grateful for her blessing to share it further and as far and wide as we can. 

 Goanna said it in the 80’s: We are standing on stolen land, sacred rock, Living on borrowed time. The urgency of our work as artists in Australia has been called into immediate action. We can’t keep benefiting off the dregs of the colony and pretending we all want the spoils of capitalism for dinner. The time to change our future is now. 

 As someone who has spent most of her career working with children and young people, I often think about what it would have been like to have someone like me in a workshop. I was the loud one. The naughty one. The one with no patience who couldn’t sit still, daydreamed through the instructions, and tried to make everyone laugh. 

 I was a strange child. I’m not that much different today to how I was as a kid. I started my first peer mentoring program in grade 5. The nothing but fun club was every lunchtime outside the Jamboree Heights State School library for kids in grade one who didn’t have any friends to sit with at lunch. We taught them how to do handstands against the wall without getting busted, draw pigs using just an E and a W and an M, and about the wonders of the apricot balls at tuckshop. 

 About this time I had moved onto learning my third language, a mission I started when I was 7 when Masafumi joined our class from Japan and couldn’t speak English, I thought it would make it easier to help him in class. See I was obsessed with koalas and when I asked him how to say koala in Japanese he just said - koala, I figured there had to be another word for it in Japanese and he must have misunderstood me. 

 My Pop was horrified - why do you want to learn that! They killed us in the war! “Well poppy maybe if we all understood each other and could speak each others language we wouldn’t have had the war in the first place” I was also responsible for some high quality independent improvised physical theatre performances that ended in dramatic tantrums because people got their lines wrong. 

 I’m telling you this, not because it’s cute or funny - but because it is important to recognise that even as children, we are all artists exploring culture, with our own compass set on changing the injustices we are witness to. As someone who has been involved with this company for 27 out of 40 years, I can safely say - Backbone is here for the long haul - always poised to shift you through your next patch of growth. To help you get the words out - whatever it is you are trying to say. 

 It takes a village to raise a child - and Backbone is just one part of that village for many children of all ages, we are here to say yes to your ideas and to help bring them to life. We are here to inspire creation. We are here to make sure that no matter what’s going on in your life, you have a place to call home, where you are loved and accepted for the complex and wonderful person you are. 

 We can’t fight these systems that were built to destroy us and our world alone. We have to work together, with the understanding that we need to approach things in our own ways, and in our own time, with love and empathy. 

 With all of that in mind - I invite you to explore, contribute and share Backbone’s 2021 Program.

Kath Quigley is the Artistic Director of Backbone Arts. This was her speech, presented on Friday 26 February at the 2021 Backbone Program Launch.