the project so far...

I grew up believing that, unlike Sydney and Melbourne, Queensland was an ethnically homogenous and resolutely 'Anglo' place. I believed this even though I understood that my own surname was not an English one, and that many of my friends bore the names of non-English ancestors. There are things about Queensland that make it unlike anywhere else in Australia: its population patterns, its political past, and its strange history - a history of forgetting.

It was estimated in 1939 that around 10 000 Scandinavians emigrated to Australia in the 19th century as a consequence of the Queensland Free Immigration program and concerted efforts to encourage Northern European immigrants to the state (Lyng 1939).

S2Q / GOOD BLOOD is the title of an ongoing investigation of the background and consequences of this migration, with particular reference to my own family heritage.

Northern European migrants (from Scandinavia but also Germany) arrived mostly through the port of Maryborough in the Wide Bay region of Queensland, having left Europe through Hamburg. The exploitation of these migrants by unscrupulous agents was of particular interest to their home nations, who often set up emigration registers to ensure the validity of migration offers.

It is understood that one of the main motivations for encouraging Scandinavian migration to Australia was as a corrective to ‘excessively’ Catholic and urban population patterns. Swedes, Finns, Norwegians and Danes were actively recruited for the cultivation of farms and rural centres. It is my opinion that this pattern of rural migration had significant long-term effects on the nature of Queensland’s subsequent development.

This project is a process of data logging and visual interpretation, where manifestations and effects are mapped, utilising material from the migration databases of Norway, Sweden and Denmark, Queensland and Australian archives and the personal collections of descendents of Scandinavian migrants.

I'm seeking to visually represent the diverse, and often problematic, cultural heritage of the state of Queensland for both a local and wider audience.

Reference
Lyng, J. (1939). The Scandinavians in Australia, New Zealand and the Western Pacific. Melbourne, Melbourne University Press.