Exhibited as part of Brisbane and Elsewhere Art UnTriennial (BEAUT) 2019, and as a response to APT 2019, this series of performative self-portraits address the political tensions of representation and are an acknowledgement of my historic and contemporary resistance to the onslaught of colonialism. As an act of political defiance, I seek to distort the colonial gaze. While the bullet belt asserts a crushing erasure of my face, the kelp becomes a metaphor of survival, and a way of challenging the pervasive myth of Palawa extinction. I am asserting my presence and claiming my identity as a proud, Palawa woman.