if you should fall into my arms tremble like a flower (2021)
2 channel 1080 video and sound
Duration 08:32 min
Commissioned by Hyphenated Biennial 2021

if you should fall into my arms tremble like a flower is a diptych of short films by Jazz Money. The piece reconsiders the legacy of David Bowie’s "only two political music videos"—Let’s Dance and China Girl—and their significance to contemporary Australia.

“I have always adored David Bowie. I grew up with his music, and found myself in the lyrics as a confused queer teen growing up in rural Australia. The music video for Let’s Dance held a particular significance to me, as it does for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People. Shot in outback NSW and Sydney the music video stars two Blakfullas, while dealing with themes of stolen wages, the Maralinga nuclear tests and Blak modernity.
It was a revelation of representation when it came out in 1983 both in Australia and globally, with the hit premiering on the newly formed MTV channel. Never before had Indigenous Australians been represented in this way on an international platform, and that significance lives on.
But in rewatching as an adult I can see the layers of complexity that this video and its Australiana partner China Girl share. My response in these videos is not resolved, it is poetic and glitchy, as so many beloved things are.”—Jazz Money