WINHANGANHA

JAZZ MONEY

WINHANGANHA (Wiradjuri language: Remember, know, think) – is an exhilarating and lyrical journey of archival footage and sound, poetry and original composition. It is an examination of how archives and the legacies of collection affect First Nations people and wider Australia, told through the lens of acclaimed Wiradjuri artist, Jazz Money.

Commissioned by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), WINHANGANHA was born from a desire to make sense of the archival inheritances that shape our present realities. Across a two-year period working closely with the NFSA collection Jazz sifted through and reflected on the institution’s extensive collections of works made by and about First Nations Australian people.

Through film, television, audio and music recordings collected since the advent of these technologies, the film is a poem in five acts that attempts to acknowledge the horrors, joys and beauties held within the archive. The film questions power and position, story teller and the stories told. The film includes original poetry written and performed by Jazz and an original score by Filipino-Aboriginal rapper and composer DOBBY (Rhyan Clapham).

WINHANGANHA is centred upon the belief that it is our own bodies that are the truest archive of our experience, and that First Nations bodies tell a powerful story of sovereignty and resistance. And while First Nations bodies have been documented, mythologised, degraded, and catalogued and stored within the colonial gaze of archive, these bodies, these people, have danced and sung and marched and are utterly whole, beyond what can be held in these collections. The film asks how we will create new futures through that which we inherit.

In Money’s words, “It is love and joy that is the overall message. That despite the injustices of the past and present, we continue to exist with love and pride in bodies that dance and march and sing and story.”

Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander audiences are advised that this film contains images and voices of people who have died.

Credits

Director: Jazz Money
Producer: Elena Guest
Executive Producers: Patrick McIntyre, Jacqui Uhlmann
Presented by: the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia