A Guide to Remembering - The Colonial Amnesia Project 2016 - 2021
A Guide to Remembering – The Colonial Amnesia Project presents a new landscape memorial typology that is derived through social exchange and collective encounters. The curatorial position of the work draws on the theoretical framework of relational aesthetics.[1]
This Project Anywhere iteration is based in Bothwell, a town located in the central highlands of Tasmania, Australia. The First Tasmanians of this region are the Leenowwenne, Pangerninghe, Braylwunyer, Larmairremener and Luggermairrernerpairrer people of the Big River Nation.[2]
Through the lens of a 5th generation Tasmanian woman with a colonial convict history linking back to this settled district; the project highlights the lack of recognition of the frontier war that occurred in this region. Earlier research explored what a memorial landscape might look like through an architectural lens for a forgotten war; however the narrative became much broader and influenced further exploration through the lens of a perpetrator and a thief.
Following the history of the Black Line (1830) and the Black War (1823 – 1831) in Tasmania during colonial invasion[3], the initial research set out to physically map the region through parallel lines that connected the violence to familial links. Perceptions altered and the deep complexities resonating from the landscape revealed that there were layers of memory, absence and haunting [4] that was far greater than any one site or place; that culture and Country had been stolen throughout Tasmania through extreme acts of violence and cultural displacement. This then posed the question…how can we capture these memories, this sense of loss and this deep haunting through a colonised concept such as a memorial, a monument, an object or a design?
The act of remembering these atrocities is prompted through a methodology of poetic provocation that aims to disrupt colonial comfort and acknowledge the collective history that took place in this region. Through an assemblage of memory, this Project Anywhere iteration commences with participatory installations and a book which includes earlier site recordings and field notes. This book presents a poetic interpretation of loss and remembrance.
The ‘poetic’ is used as a methodology to engage the reader who is taken on a visual journey of images, story telling, poetry and historical text. A small black story book, the reader is drawn in with a sense of familiarity. ‘Provocation’ is also used as a methodology. Provocative narratives of truth and personal nuances are woven in to affront the amnesia.
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[1] Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics, (Dijon, Les presses du reel, 1998) English Edition 2002.
[2] Lyndall Ryan, Tasmanian Aborigines, A history since 1803 (Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 2012), 16
[3] Ryan, Tasmanian Aborigines, 87 -141
[4] John Wylie, Landscape, (Oxon UK, Routledge, 2007)