Men of High Degree: Jim Everett – puralia meenamatta (clan plangermairreenner, Ben Lomond people, Cape Portland nation, north-east Tasmania), 2023

Brenda L Croft
Gurindji/Malngin/Mudburra peoples; Anglo-Australian/Chinese/German/Irish/Scottish heritage
born Australia 1964

Prue Hazelgrove (wet plate collodion process technical assistant)

Men of High Degree: Jim Everett – puralia meenamatta (clan plangermairreenner, Ben Lomond people, Cape Portland nation, north-east Tasmania) 2023
original wet plate collodion process tintype, pigment photographic print on paper

‘I met Jim Everett – puralia meenamatta – at the First Black Playwrights Conference in 1987. This was such a formative event for me, being surrounded by senior cultural and political activists and creatives. At the time Jim was producer at ABC TV’s Aboriginal Programs Unit. Born on Flinders Island, Tasmania, Jim lives on Cape Barren Island. With 50 years involvement in the First Nations struggle, Jim is renowned as a creative and critical author, and producer/cultural advisor on documentary and feature films. This portrait is the second in my series Men of High Degree – a cultural reimagining of early 20th-century anthropologist AP Elkin’s culturally inappropriate publication Aboriginal Men of High Degree.’

Brenda L Croft’s creative-led research encompasses Critical Indigenous Performative Collaborative Autoethnography and Storywork.