Unfinished monument to Batman's Treaty

Abstract

Tom Nicholson presents traces from his ‘Unfinished monument to Batman's Treaty’ (2011–), an ongoing public sculpture project engaging Batman's Treaty, its history and meanings. The work takes as its starting point Melbourne's first chimney, the chimney built for John Batman by William Buckley. The central component of ‘Unfinished monument’ is one A4 sheet of paper, a sheet of paper which functions as a monument plaque. Melbournians are invited to attach these plaques to the chimneys in their own living rooms. In this way, the city's chimneys are gradually re-inscribed as commemorations of the city's first chimney, becoming parts of an ever-growing monument to the city's conflicted origins, potentially as vast as the city itself. ‘Unfinished monument’ grapples with the complex meanings of Batman's Treaty through the form of the hearth, implicating the Treaty and its ramifications in the most intimate and convivial spaces of our urban environment, our living rooms.