the tree as it stands

I spoke to a group of students at the Queensland College of Art this last Monday. They are preparing for a project looking at bodies and a few artists were asked in to discuss their approach to the body. Ray Cook, that marvellously mischievous Brisbane photographer, was talking about the secret gay stories of famous historical bodies apparently. I was sad to have missed that. There is always something fabulous about the reinterpretation of history from another viewpoint. I took a single pine finial for my show and tell, and a range of images from my practice of the past 16 years. When I thought about my work in preparation for this talk I became aware of how important the ‘missing’ body has always been to me; the bodies that become invisible, either through repression, regulation or the simple act of forgetting.

Previously I have drawn attention to no-bodies via empty spaces, cavities and the traced impressions of past presence but with this project my father and I are giving each missing body its own firm, physical proxy. I have to wonder what the implications of that will be for my future work…

Here is an image of the partially completed work as we set it up in the studio last weekend. It really does become more and more unwieldy as it grows, just like a real family. My father has taken to carrying most of the pieces around in a neat black shoulder bag. It all seems very ‘have art, will travel’ and entirely appropriate given that this is a migration story about cultural transport. There were discussions about Queensland, and a more generally Australian habit of forgetting, on Monday. It was so stimulating to hear other people’s perspectives on the project and their own stories about ‘slipping’ cultural identities. I hope that it is understood that I am not making some special claim for a Scandinavian history of Queensland in this work. I am simply curious to know why some migrant identities are ‘marked’ and remain highly visible, while others evaporate. I will always be suspicious of forgotten data. If my ancestors were chosen as suitable migrants to Australia because it was presumed their own heritage and difference would disappear, it becomes my job to rattle that presumption, no matter how long ago it was made.

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.