![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Abstract
By way of a dialogue between the two authors – an artist and an art historian – this article reflects on the artistic method of repurposing the colonial archive, in particular the vast collection of photographs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Important contexts for this work include the international practice, established in the 1990s amongst artists, communities, and museums, of addressing hidden histories of war and genocide in the public sphere. In Australia, this included challenging colonial visions and the damaging history of representing First Nations peoples. At the same time, Australian colonial archives increasingly became more accessible and an important cultural and political resource for First Nations peoples. This article considers both the debate around cultural protocols of Indigenous knowledge that has emerged in the last twenty years and the relentless ideology of primitivism that has restricted the visibility of Indigenous loss. Pervading these developments has been the persistent emotional, historical, and political dilemma of how artists access these archives and produce decolonial readings of the ‘mess’ and trauma of colonial events.
Notes
1 The Frontier Wars refer to the colonial wars in Australia that began during the invasion of Australia by the British in 1788. Some argue the wars still continue, although this research is specific to the dates attached to the moving frontier of British and the Australian settlement, or invasion, of Indigenous lands. For a recent account, see Henry Reynolds, The Forgotten War, Sydney: NewSouth Publishing 2013.
2 Marcia Langton interviewed by Namila Benson, ‘The Importance of Remembering’, National Gallery of Victoria, 20 April 2017. Audio recording, 45 minutes. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
3 Maxine Briggs interviewed for Brook Andrew’s video artwork Interviews 3, 2017. Video, 25 minutes.
4 Terri Janke, Our Culture, Our Future: Proposals for Recognition and Protection of Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property, Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs 1997.
5 Jane Lydon, Flash of Recognition: Photography and the Emergence of Indigenous Rights, Sydney: NewSouth Publishing 2012, 23–24.
6 Walter Mignolo, The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options, Durham, NC: Duke University Press 2011.
7 The last session of the 2015 symposium ‘The Black Subject: Ancient to Modern at the Tate Modern’ positioned India and Africa in the scope of the British Empire, but the Pacific was clearly absent. Eddie Chambers, True Colours: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Raise the Flag, Chippendale, NSW: Boomali Aboriginal Artists Co-operative 1994.
8 Jane Lydon, Julie Gough, Sari Braithwaite, et al., Calling the Shots: Aboriginal Photographies, Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press 2014.
9 Briggs in Andrew, Interviews 3.
10 Ibid.
11 Judith Ryan and Brook Andrew, Brook Andrew: The Right to Offend is Sacred, Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria 2017.
12 Stuart Macintyre and Anna Clark, The History Wars, Carlton, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press 2004.
13 Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer, ‘What’s Wrong with this Picture?’, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 5:2 (2006), 237.
14 Christine Nicholls, ‘Brook Andrew: Seriously Playful’, RealTime, 54 (April–May 2003), 28.
15 Marcia Langton, ‘Brook Andrew: Ethical Portraits and Ghost-scapes’, in Annual Journal of the National Gallery of Victoria, ed. Judith Ryan, Melbourne: Council of Trustees of the National Gallery of Victoria 2008, 48.
16 Ibid.
17 Reynolds, Forgotten War, 30.
18 For more information, see ‘Shimon Attie: The Writing on the Wall’, http://shimonattie.net/portfolio/the-writing-on-the-wall/ (accessed 26 February 2018).
19 Carrie Mae Weem, ‘From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried’, 1994. Chromogenic colour prints with sand-blasted text on glass, 28 works: 67.9 x 55.8 cm; 4 works: 55.8 x 67.9 cm; 2 works: 110.4 x 85 cm. Museum of Modern Art, New York.
20 Interview with Faye Ginsberg and Fred Myers by Brook Andrew, 10 August 2017, New York. Audio recording, 64 minutes. For a full transcript, contact the authors.
21 Jessica Neath, ‘The Photography of Empty Lands: Tasmanian History in the Art of Ricky Maynard and Anne Ferran’, PhD thesis, Monash University 2015, chapter 1.
22 Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, London: Penguin Books 2003; and Picturing Atrocity: Photography in Crisis, ed. Geoffrey Batchen, Mick Gidley, Nancy K. Miller, and Jay Prosser, London: Reaktion Books 2012, 4.
23 Photography, Anthropology and History: Expanding the Frame, ed. Christopher Morton and Elizabeth Edwards, Farnham: Ashgate 2009.
24 Elliott Johnston (commissioner), Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, ‘National report: overview and recommendations’, Canberra: Australian Govt. Pub. Service 1991; and Ronald Wilson, Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families, Sydney: Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission 1997.
25 After 200 Years: Photographic Essays of Aboriginal and Islander Australia Today, ed. Penny Taylor, Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press 1988.
26 Catherine de Lorenzo and Juno Gemes, ‘From Resistance Towards Invisibility’, Anthropology and Photography, 3 (2016), 1–19.
27 For an in-depth analysis of photographs made of First Nations peoples in nineteenth-century Victoria, see Jane Lydon, Eye Contact: Photographing First Nations Peoples, Durham, NC: Duke University Press 2005.
28 Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (1981), London: Vintage 2000, 79 (original emphasis).
29 Ibid., 80.
30 ‘Daniel Boyd: Pineapples in the Pacific’, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, available at http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/news/releases/2014/01/09/245/ (accessed 3 June 2017).
31 Garry Jones, ‘Vernon Ah Kee – Sovereign Warrior’, Artlink, 30:1 (March 2010), available at https://www.artlink.com.au/articles/3361/vernon-ah-kee-sovereign-warrior/ (accessed 7 February 2018).
32 Erikka Julie e Searles, ‘Hype and Hypersexuality: Kara Walker, Her Work and Controversy’, MA thesis, Georgia State University 2006.
33 For a summary, see Darren Jorgenson and Ian McLean, ‘Preface’, in Indigenous Archives: The Making and Unmaking of Aboriginal Art, Crawley, WA: UWA Publishing 2017, viii–ix.
34 Searles, ‘Hype and Hypersexuality’, 18.
35 By choice, ‘r e a’ spells her name lowercase throughout and with a space between the individual letters of her name.
36 Clare Williamson and Hetti Perkins, Blakness: Blak City Culture, South Yarra: Australian Centre for Contemporary Art 1995. Exhibition catalogue available at https://acca.melbourne/exhibition/blakness-blak-city-culture/ (accessed 26 February 2018).
37 Terri Janke and Australian Institute of Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Studies, Our Culture Our Future: Report on Australian Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights, Surry Hills, NSW: Michael Frankel & Company, Solicitors 1998.
38 An example is Alice Hinton-Bateup (Kamilaroi/Wonnarua peoples), Dispossessed, 1986, paper screen print printed in colour inks from multiple stencils, 49.6 cm × 74.7 cm. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
39 Kara Walker, ‘Notes on Norma’, in Kara Walker and Hilton Als, Kara Walker NORMA, London: Victoria Miro 2015, 19.
40 Walter Mignolo, ‘Neither Capitalism nor Communism, but Decolonization: Interview with Walter Mignolo (Part I)’, Critical Legal Thinking (21 March 2012), available at http://criticallegalthinking.com/2012/03/21/neither-capitalism-nor-communism-but-decolonization-an-interview-with-walter-mignolo/ (accessed 30 January 2017).
41 Helen Ennis, Photography and Australia, London: Reaktion Books 2007, 50.
42 Jane Anderson, ‘Indigenous Knowledge, Intellectual Property, Libraries and Archives: Crises of Access, Control and Future Utility’, Australian Academic & Research Libraries, 36:2 (2005), 83–94.
43 Rosalind Krauss, ‘The Originality of the Avant-Garde: A Postmodern Repetition’, October, 18 (Autumn 1981), 66; and Douglas Crimp, ‘Pictures’, October, 8 (Spring 1979), 87.
44 Krauss, ‘Originality of the Avant-Garde’, 66.
45 Rex Butler, ‘Introduction’, in What is Appropriation? An Anthology of Critical Writings on Australian Art in the 80s and 90s, Sydney: Power Publications 1996.
46 For a discussion of the recent Indigenous uses of the photographic archive and the development of cultural protocols, see Jane Lydon, ‘Return: The Photographic Archive and Technologies of Indigenous Memory’, Photographies, 3:2 (2010), 173–87. For a discussion of issues around artists appropriating Indigenous artworks, see Ian McLean, ‘Post-Western Poetics: Postmodern Appropriation Art in Australia’, Art History, 37:4 (September 2014), 628–47. See also Jorgenson and McLean, ‘Preface’, vii–xiv.
47 McLean, ‘Post-Western Poetics’, 640.
48 Ian McLean, ‘This Belong to Me, the One Dollar Note: The Eternal Returns of Appropriation’, Contemporary Visual Art + Culture: Broadsheet, 42:1 (2013), 20.
49 Editors, ‘Appropriation: No Longer Appropriate?’, Contemporary Visual Art + Culture: Broadsheet, 42:1 (2013), 23–25.
50 David Garneau, ‘Apropos Appropriate Appropriations: After the Apologies’, Art Monthly Australia, 226 (2010), 27–29.
51 Des Griffin, ‘Previous Possessions, New Obligations: A Commitment by Australian Museums’, Curator, 39:1 (March 1996), 45.
52 Ibid., 51. The ‘Previous Possessions, New Obligations’ policy was adopted by Museums Australia in 1993; and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Protocols for Libraries, Archives and Information Services was first published in 1995. In 1991, the Australian Archaeological Association adopted a code of ethics. In 1983, the Council of Australian Museum Directors adopted the policy of not acquiring or displaying human remains, and of returning provenanced remains.
53 Advisory Committee for Indigenous Repatriation, National Resting Place Consultation Report 2014, Barton, ACT: Attorney-General’s Department 2014.
54 Lydon, ‘Return: The Photographic Archive and Technologies of Indigenous Memory’, 173–87.
55 Lydon, Flash of Recognition, 24.
56 For a summary, see Jorgenson and McLean, ‘Preface’, viii–ix.
57 ‘Recommendations’, see no. 53, Australasian Legal Information Institute, http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/IndigLRes/rciadic/national/vol5/5.html (accessed 26 February 2018).
58 Terri Janke and Livia Iacovino, ‘Keeping Cultures Alive: Archives and Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights’, Archival Science, 12:2 (June 2012), 163–64.
59 Janis Bergman-Carton, ‘Christian Boltanski’s Dernières Années: The History of Violence and the Violence of History’, History and Memory, 13:1 (Spring/Summer 2001), 3.
60 Ibid.
61 Paul Daley, ‘The Gweagal Shield and the Fight to Change the British Museum’s Attitude to Seized Artefacts’, The Guardian, 25 September 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/25/the-gweagal-shield-and-the-fight-to-change-the-british-museums-attitude-to-seized-artefacts (accessed 26 February 2018).
62 ‘Bringing Them Home’; and Colin Tatz, ‘Genocide in Australia’, AIATSIS Research Discussion Paper, 8 (1999), 1–50. The journal Aboriginal History published a special issue on genocide in 2001, including Andrew Markus, ‘Genocide in Australia’, Aboriginal History, 25 (2001), 57–69. For more recent articles, see the scholarship of Dirk Moses and Ann Curthoys.
63 A. Dirk Moses, ‘Genocide and Settler Society in Australian History’, in Genocide and Settler Society: Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History, ed. A. Dirk Moses, New York: Berghahn Books 2004, 3–4.