DROP IT (2018) is a self portrait work that references a famous work by Ai weiwei . It comments on the history wars in Australia, that are an ongoing public debate categorised into two pejoratively schools of thought: ‘Black armband’ / ‘White blindfold’. Here is a simple time equation to explain where I stand:
250(years)Captain Cook / 65000+(years) Aboriginal = 0.00384615(years)
8760(hours)=1(year)
0.00384615(year) x 8760(hours)= 33.69(hours) Captain Cook’s time/legacy on this continents history
They say numbers don’t lie historians: Captain Cook is very insignificant in comparison to the legacy of this countries Aboriginal history, yet the government is going to spend $50 million to commemorate the 250th anniversary of James Cook’s first voyage to Australia and we still don’t have a dedicated education institution anywhere in this country to celebrate and be a safe keeping place for the cultural property of Indigenous people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture of 65,000+ years of civilisation.
In Washington there is the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and there is also the National Museum of African American History and Culture. In Switzerland there is a dedicated Australian Indigenous art gallery even, yet in Australia we have nothing of the like of size. It really is shameful and a global embarrassment Australia