BHENJI RA: My name's Bhenji Ra.
I live and work on Gadigal land of the Eora Nation.
I've been here for about five years.
And to describe my practice,
I would say that it probably works within this framework
of like motherhood right now.
I'm a dancer.
I work with video, community events.
I do a lot of collaborative work.
I have 12 daughters and eight grandchildren.
So, I think, yeah, my practice is really dancing
between all of those things all at once.

QUESTION: WHEN DID YOU START CALLING YOURSELF AN ARTIST?

I feel like I had a pretty strong awareness
that I was an artist from a very young age.
I think that was a kind of cultural role I played within my family,
just as always like the one who was creative
or the one who would bring the entertainment.
And then as I grew up,
it was more me coming into my actual
cultural ancestral role as a storyteller
or as someone who was bridging people together,
or even participating in cultural practices.
And so, yeah, I think it was like calling myself an artist was at a time
when I was really stepping into my own cultural identity.
I think those two kind of went together.

QUESTION: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PEOPLE SEE YOUR WORK?

I think they're quite affected.
There's a lot of joy that goes on.
I think there is quite an emotional attachment to my work sometimes
because it does come from quite, I think, personal mythologies
and in relations in terms of the people and voices that are often unheard.
And I think I like to have people, yeah, affected in a way
that I get affected when I view things
that are perhaps like cultural practice or something like there is quite a...
There's more than just kind of...
digesting of the work or the performance
that there's also maybe a spiritual or cultural mapping or imprinting
that is going on within the bodies.
It's like a transference of energy.
I know that sounds kind of like... (LAUGHS)
but I think there's definitely some sort of energetic thing
that is also happening during the work, and it's quite...
I really believe in bunch of cool moments and these 'ah' moments,
and creating that magic and craft
in the craft that goes into that assisting that.

QUESTION: WHAT ARE YOU HOPEFUL FOR?

I'm hopeful for resistance and what that looks like in this new world.
I'm hopeful that walls and borders
both physical and structural,
you know, eventually fall down and can disappear.
And I'm hopeful that that happens,
and excited to see how that happens
and what that language looks like in terms of being able to name things
and name power structures that keep people,
like myself and people from my community,
from entering spaces or being heard,
or being able to walk in this world freely.
I'm hopeful that the art world becomes really just...
I'm hopeful for shifts in the art world
in terms of whose voices and whose stories we're hearing
and that there's a shift
in institutionalising the bodies and historically
the kind of...
Just like a re-imagining of what an art world could look like for us
and especially feeling like the future is going
to be so wanting off an artistic voice.
And that is really where we're heading in terms of change.
Yeah. I'm hopeful that the next generation
and that my daughters and my daughter's daughters
carry on, kind of, a resilience and a self-assurance
that they matter and then they're important,
and that, you know, that they are continuing
kind of like the evolution of their ancestors.
And that this is all important work that we're all doing together.
And that if we don't do it, then no one else is going to do it.