Elijah Money

gurudhaany birranydyang (goanna boy)

gurudhaany birranydyang, a space where Elijah Money speaks to Wiradjuri totem animal, the goanna. Made up of a written triptych, oil gauche painting, acrylic artwork and video piece, gurudhaany birranydyang highlights the relationship between culture and the colony through body and self. Incorporating camp elements, Money averts the settler colonial gaze and re-centres queer Blak joy. 

Presenting the journey of gurudhaany; whose fate was doomed to be captured by the colony, the goanna escapes to freedom. Using resin to trap the goanna, Money critiques settler colonial capitalism and how the industrial revolution continues to impact Country through its obsession with plastic. Gurudhaany’s capture speaks symbolically of how settler colonialism has an ongoing desire to only view First Peoples as stagnant and unable to evolve. Money refutes this ideology, speaking to anti colonial autonomy.