BREATHING SPACE

BREATHING SPACE

 

Julie Gough, BREATHING SPACE, 2021. With construction by Stuart Houghton. Timber, poster (digital).

Download the high-resolution poster: BREATHING SPACE(PDF, 177MB)

Artist statement

Encased, crated and covered, the statue of William Lodewyk Crowther and its laudatory plaque is finally, albeit temporarily, removed from view. The man was monstrous. His legacy is Aboriginal grieving, that still persists in his and his progenies wake; infamously efficient body-snatchers much celebrated by the citizens of Hobart. Let us use this time as relief, protected from his arrogant gaze, yet realize we don't need to see the face of evil to know it is always there, haunting and testing the measure of society.

Artist bio

Julie Gough is an Aboriginal woman from the Briggs-Johnson-Gower family of northern Lutruwita/Tasmania. She is an artist who interrogates colonial history on Aboriginal Country, and a curator of First Peoples Art and Culture at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

BREATHING SPACE
BREATHING SPACE

Suggested reading

8 March 1869
FUNERAL OF THE LAST MALE ABORIGINAL. (1869, March 8). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas.: 1860 - 1954), p. 2. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8857624
Article(PDF, 2MB)
Article transcript(PDF, 65KB)
Out of Copyright – permission not needed

8 August 1873
Letter (transcript, copy) from Morton Allport, Hobart to Dr James Barnard Davis, Shelton, Staffordshire. Original held at the Allport library and Museum of Fine Arts, Hobart
Letter transcript(PDF, 46KB)
Permission not required for transcript

10 January 1889
CROWTHER MEMORIAL STATUE. (1889, January 10). Launceston Examiner (Tas.: 1842 - 1899), p. 2. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article38341957
Article(PDF, 932KB)
Article transcript(PDF, 63KB)
Out of Copyright – permission not needed

Fforde, Cressida, 1992, 'The Posthumous history of William Lanne', World Archaeological Bulletin, No. 6, pp.63-69
Article(PDF, 2MB)
Author's permission granted 9 September 2021

Petrow, Stefan, 1998, 'The Last man: The Mutilation of William Lanne in 1869 and its Aftermath', Australian Cultural History, No. 16, 1998, pp.90-112
Article(PDF, 677KB)
Author's permission granted 9 September 2021

MacDonald, Helen Patricia, 2005, Human remains: episodes in human dissection. Carlton, Vic: Melbourne University Press, pp.108-129, 136-182, 185, Refs/Biblio: 194-212
Book excerpt(PDF, 114MB)
Author's permission granted 10 September 2021

MacDonald, Helen Patricia, 2010, Possessing the dead : the artful science of Anatomy. Calton, Vic: Melbourne University Press, pp.125-151, Refs/Biblio: 247-249, 261-279
Book excerpt(PDF, 10MB)
Author's permission granted 11 October 2021

Turnbull, Paul, 2017, Science, museums and collecting the indigenous dead in colonial Australia. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 142-149, 253, biblio: 365-403
Book excerpt(PDF, 70MB)
Author's permission granted 9 September 2021

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