Since the Mid-1990s, the Indigenous artist, Julie Gough, has mined the absences of Tasmanian historical narratives as the basis of her practice. Drawing upon the scraps and fragments that have been tactically discarded from Australian cultural memory - the banal, kitsch remnants that have been consigned to the op-shops and garage sales throughout Tasmania - Gough has created a series of strict, gridded formations that have been riveted to the walls of galleries in Australia and overseas. These images contribute to the various revisionist histories of Lyndall Ryan, Jim Everett and Henry Reynolds. Gough's gridded displays of colonial detritus are particularly adept at addressing the white bias of Tasmanian histories due to their visual play upon the methodological limitations of conventional historical narratives. They unearth the unsettling forms of colonialism that few claim ownership for - the melancholy detritus that is conventionally obscured from the historical record.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	histories of colonialism, collecting, Black wars, Palawa displacement, visual art, visual culture, melancholy
Research Division:	Creative Arts and Writing
Research Group:	Art history, theory and criticism
Research Field:	Visual cultures
Objective Division:	Culture and Society
Objective Group:	Communication
Objective Field:	Visual communication
UTAS Author:	Bullock, MJ (Dr Marita Bullock)
ID Code:	147409
Year Published:	2005
Deposited By:	Office of the School of Humanities
Deposited On:	2021-10-30
Last Modified:	2021-12-08
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