Judy Watson, 40 pairs of blackfellows ears lawn hill station, 2008 (TarraWarra Museum of Art)
Review of ‘Looking Glass: Judy Watson and Yhonnie Scarce’, TarraWarra Museum of Art. Published in ABR Arts, December 2020
In an interview with Hetti Perkins, curator of Looking Glass, Scarce discusses Australia’s dearth of memorials to mark places of Indigenous destruction and trauma. Physical memorial and anti-memorial sites – so abundant in Berlin, for instance – offer the opportunity for remembrance, acknowledgment, and pilgrimage.
‘Why aren’t Aboriginal people shown that respect?’ Scarce asks Perkins. Movingly, Perkins replies: ‘I think that as Indigenous people we carry around a reservoir of grief within us and there’s no place to mourn.’