Birndi Wirndi | Worlds Apart: Site-Specific Documentary
Birndi Wirndi – Worlds Apart can be referred to as site-specific Expanded Documentary; taking the documentary out of the traditional screening space and in this case re-projecting it onto the walls of the Victoria Hotel, Roebourne; taking the traditionally dark spaces of new media into the dark space of the Pilbara night to shed light on the even darker spaces of the Roebourne past.
Birndi Wirndi – Worlds Apart is a blend of sampled archival footage, sound, text, imagery and hand-made effects.
It rides the historical journey grounded in Aboriginal existence in Roebourne, following the story of the pub from communal drinking hole and meeting ground, to pit of despair. The piece traverses the impact of the mining boom, the influx of workers into Roebourne, the exponential rise in the business of the Victoria Hotel, the granting of citizenship rights (i.e. drinking rights) to Aboriginal people and the death of John Pat and resulting Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody. Despite all of this, it ends on a note of hope represented as embedded in the resolute strength of the Yindjibarndi people, many of whom were present on the night of the screening.