BRAD DARKSON

Artist Statement

UNCEDED LAND

2019

 

There is a western architectural belief that the vacant site of land is indistinguishable in our memory from any other vacant site, and that the building is what creates the memory of place within our minds. This ideology forgets the land.

 

UNCEDED LAND references not just the individual experience of being physically present within a major Australian government cultural building, but also the notion of being spiritually present, and being conscious of the cultural magnitude of an institution as large as the Art Gallery of South Australia. The work was intended to be a comment on memory. The site of the gallery, the unceded Kaurna land on which the gallery was built, holds memories of Kaurna people past and present.

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The voice featured in this work is Kira Yaltu Bain, a Ngarrindjeri woman born and raised on Kaurna land and currently working to revive the Kaurna language. The work is a live, layered composition of one portion of the acknowledgement to country delivered by Kira to those present in the Elder Wing during TRANSCRIPTIONS 2. The Kaurna words highlighted in this work refer to the land, or Country, on which the audience stands.