Strange Fruit: The Art of Fiona Foley is a unique study of the work of the redoubtable and controversial Australian Aborigine artist Fiona Foley, whose work focuses on the subversion of racism. It was shot during her first European exhibition, at the  October Gallery, Bloomsbury, London.

Artist, activist, curator and writer, Fiona Foley stands at the forefront of cultural-political discourse in Australia. Standing witness to a history of trauma, invasion and dispossession, her sculptural installations and photographs are sometimes angry, sometimes satirical, often humorous, always political.

A descendant of the Batjala people who were forcibly removed from the island of Thoorgine (Fraser Island) at the turn of the twentieth century, Foley engages fearlessly with the reclaiming of historical narratives, and of the land itself. 

The central discourse of the film comes from a very dredging interview with the artist, which peels back the layers of identity vis-a-vis racism and displacement in Australia, while drawing parallels with global tyranny's affecting the African Diaspora. It also establishes Foley's magnanimity towards other Australians (the descendants of the tyrants): “It is a shared experience.” she concedes.

Strange Fruit featured her latest body of work through which she explores discourses of hatred as manifest in contemporary Australian society. In the style of anthropological portraits, her series of HHH (Hedonistic Honky Haters) photographs draws uncomfortable and uncompromising attention to difficult histories of racism, violence and oppression. He poignant BLANKETS, installs the blankets issued the displaced Aboriginal women by government agents, and on which they were raped by the same agents. 

Fiona Foley trained at Sydney College of Arts and Central St Martins College, London. She was one of the founding members of the Boomalli Aboriginal Artist Co-operative in Sydney, and is today represented in all major public collections in Australia.  She has curated several exhibitions and written and lectured extensively on the subject of indigenous and colonial culture.  This is her first solo exhibition in London.

To view on-line catalogue, visit http://www.octobergallery.co.uk/artists/foley/index.shtml

Producer/Writer/Director: Ishmael Annobil | Cinematography: Ori Batut | Editing: William Olivier George | Stills: Ishmael Annobil and Abiy Mamo.