Destiny Deacon is a descendant of the KuKu (Far North Queensland) and Erub/Mer (Torres Strait) people but lived in Melbourne for most of her life.
As a young person, Destiny was inspired by her mother’s activism and work with the Aboriginal Advancement League. She decided to study political science, completing a Bachelor of Arts at Melbourne University. From there, she worked with the newly created Equal Opportunity Unit of the Commonwealth Public Service Board, training young Indigenous workers to work in public service roles.
In the early 1980s, she came to La Trobe University to study a Diploma of Education.
“I realised I should get a teacher’s diploma to improve my qualifications and move up a ladder,” she said. “The process of getting into the course was by writing a letter, letting them know why you wanted to be a teacher... I told them I wanted to help my people and getting a Diploma of Education would mean a lot. It did and they let me in.”
Her coursework included English, history and social sciences, and she concentrated on teaching disadvantaged students – which she said “was me down to a T”. This work took her to placements at secondary schools across Melbourne’s northern suburbs.
“My lecturers were well-versed in teaching unruly students, and they kept my attention with methods I still use to this day,” she said in an interview in 2018. “I’m glad I got a Diploma of Education. It opened up my life. Having been a visual artist for nearly 30 years, I haven’t forgotten how important teaching is.”
After graduating from La Trobe, Destiny taught in Victorian secondary and Aboriginal community schools. She also maintained a presence in activist circles, leading her to a job in Canberra with Aboriginal activist Charles Perkins, as a staff trainer.
Later, she worked at The University of Melbourne, teaching subjects in Australian Writing and Culture, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Production. But her ongoing desire to express herself creatively would soon lead to another career move.
An artists' destiny
In the late 80s, Destiny began shooting video. Her first artworks were made with an Open Channel VHS video camera – featuring friends, family and herself as subjects. Partly autobiographical and partly fictional, her ‘lo tech’ productions poked fun at Indigenous clichés and mass-media depictions of Aboriginal life.
“I became an artist to tell stories of being an Indigenous Australian: colonialism, poverty, racism, sexism. I started taking trips interstate and the allure became a lot of fun, meeting all sorts of people in the art world and living the artist’s life,” she said.
In the 90s, Destiny’s artistic practice expanded to include photography, sculpture, performance and installation. She continued to use friends and family as her artistic subjects, as well as her large collection of 'Aboriginalia' – toy dolls, plastic boomerangs and other kitsch objects. Using these objects, she developed a comedic visual language to challenge the identity, race and gender stereotypes that Indigenous people face.
Since that time, Destiny’s work has been exhibited around the world, including the Havana Biennale (1994), the Johannesburg Biennale (1995), the Yokohama Triennale (2001), and Documenta (2002). Her work has been the subject of two major retrospectives, Walk & don’t look blak at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art (2004) and Destiny at the National Gallery of Victoria (2020).
Honouring a legacy – taking ownership of ‘blakness’
Destiny is also credited with pioneering the use of the word Blak in Australia, after her photographic work Blak lik mi (1991-2003). 'Blak', unlike 'Black', was her way of self-determining her identity by redefining the spelling and meaning of the word. Growing up, Deacon always heard white people calling Aboriginal people ‘black c—s’. Taking the 'c' out of Black was her way of erasing the c-word.
The legacy of this term for First Nations communities is huge – now used widely as an expression of urban, contemporary Aboriginal identity. It has also become important in differentiating the First Nations or Blak experience from that of other communities of colour.
In 2019, La Trobe acknowledged Destiny’s incredible, multi-disciplinary career by awarding her an Honorary Doctor of Education. Her impact on the art world and on wider culture as an artist, broadcaster, political activist, educator and academic is substantial, and has been widely recognised. Represented by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery for more than 20 years, she received the Yalingwa Fellowship from the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (2018) as well as the Centenary medal and an honorary fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society (2022).
We at La Trobe University celebrate her wide-reaching legacy. Vale, Destiny.
Image: Destiny Deacon, Grandstanding (2017), lightjet print, purchased 2018, La Trobe University Art Collection.
