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In Absense Is a commissioned temporary pavillion in the NGV gallery courtyard.
A slice of nothingness splitting wholeness, the fissure and void at the symbolic heart of this structure is designed to evoke and clarify the false absence implied by terra nullius – a colonial strategy that claimed an absence of permanent Aboriginal settlement, which thus declared Australia as an emptiness awaiting ownership.
The project is not about representation; it is about establishing just enough architecture – and space – to create sufficient opportunity for what is invisible to reveal itself. The slice through the building also references the design of traditional stone eel traps that manipulate water flows to enable large-scale, sustainable aquaculture production.
Seeping out of the cracks between the black boards and rising skywards within the structure are hundreds of ink-black glass murnong (yams) by Yhonnie Scarce.
The glass murnong represent many things, including oil from fish or eels, water, medicinal sap from trees, fish, leeches and the metaphorical mapping of waterways and stars. She intends for these yams, rising within this symbolic tower, to attest to ‘the pain of this false absence, by filling the space with the glittering light of the memories and echoes of thousands of years of occupation’ “ Where are we going to go? Where are we going to get a place to live, to stay? Where? In the air or where, because farmers coming on the land; fisheries are coming on the sea? Where can we find a space now for Aboriginal people? Where? We can’t live on the air. Where are you pushing us? This is our land. This is our homeland. “
Submission to the Aboriginal Land Commissioner regarding control of entry onto seas adjoining Aboriginal Landin the Milingimbi, Crocodile Islands and Clyde River Area.’ 30 may 1980 Written by Mark Dreyfus (NLC) assisted by Mathew Dhulumburrk
Similar themes are represented in both research of these precedents. The effects of colonilism and stolen land on not only the people but therir methodlogies of maintaining the land, therefor how it impacted on the land itself when traditions where abolished. Some of these key themes include directing the eye, creating view ports with structure, unexpected absense of space, scale and Heirarchy, things not quite fitting or being out of place and a gradual change to destruction.
1.Banjo Clarke 2. Front of House 3. Reginald Saunders 3. 2. 1.
