Non-death Memorials Australia

Non-death Memorials Australia, a group on Flickr.

More images are available on the Flickr group Non-death Memorials Australia

Unfolding Lives memorial to the Forgotten Australians

The "Unfolding Lives" memorial is located in the Perth cultural centre, outside the WA Museum.

This art work was commissioned by the Federal and State (WA) governments to serve as a memorial to the lost childhood of the group of people known as the Forgotten Australians; people who suffered abuse and/or neglect within Australia’s state care institutions during the 20th century. This story is an important part of Australian’s history—some of those abused were child migrants sent from England supposedly for a ‘better life’. Others were Aboriginal children taken from their parents as part of what we now call the Stolen Generations.

The commission was organised by respected public art curator Andra Kins’s Urban Thresholds consultancy and designed by artist Judith Forest in collaboration with writer Terri-ann White. The form of the sculpture relates to its meaning as a memorial to lost childhood; it is in the shape of a ‘chatterbox’, a simple children’s game using folded paper and text.

The chatterbox and two accompanying metal tiles contain fragments of stories or testimony from Redress WA, a WA State Government initiative whereby survivors were able to apply for small ex-gratia payments and receive an apology from the State Government.

The commissioning of the memorial followed the WA Redress program, and a National Apology to the Forgotten Australians in 2009. It was dedicated in December 2010. A plaque identifies both State and Federal Governments as having commissioned the sculpture and explains that it is designed to serve as a reminder to policy makers of the importance of caring for children.

Survivors, including the Care Leavers Australia Network (CLAN) welcomed the memorial. One survivor, who was part of the memorial project committee, is quoted as saying, “This memorial is for healing. It’s gentle and yet it’s powerful. I just love it.”

Yet, at the same time as the memorial commission was going ahead, there was controversy about the Redress WA process. The Liberal government, having realised that the number of claimants was much higher than expected, cut the maximum payment almost by half. Some survivors said that having been required to tell their story was re-traumatising, and the process did not always lead to people feeling their story had been ‘heard.’

Questions:

Has the Unfolding Lives memorial brought healing? Has it helped to raise awareness, to give survivors that reassurance that their experience has been acknowledged?
Does this memorial create the impression that children only experienced abuse in the past, and that the past is over and done with?
The Perth Cultural Centre website advertises Unfolding Lives as a memorial acknowledging those who overcame adversity. But what about those who have not ‘overcome’ and who continue to be adversely affected by their childhood experiences?

Mary's Place Rape Memorial

Mary’s Place is a laneway in the inner-Sydney suburb of Surry Hills, running just off Bourke St next to the Beresford Hotel. The place name itself is a memorial: it was changed from the original Flood Lane in 1997 as an acknowledgement of the brutal bashing and rape, a year earlier, of a young woman named Mary. The attack was homophobic in nature, in an area with a strong gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) community.

Since its renaming, Mary’s Place has been the site of two artistic memorials, the first created in 1997 at the same time as the renaming of the laneway. This was part of the Mary’s Place Project instigated by the local organisation the Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project and grew out of a spontaneous outpouring of distress and community support in the months following the attack. The memorial consisted of a series of paintings creating a kind of ‘carpet’ effect along the laneway, with each artist bringing a slightly different interpretation. The artwork was destroyed when the Beresford was renovated in the mid-2000s and the laneway was resurfaced. There are few remaining images, apart from those included in a documentary (titled Mary’s Place) created in 1998 and directed by Melissa Lee.
In 2010, the current Lamp for Mary memorial was installed, following a public art commissioning process by the City of Sydney. The artist Mikela Dwyer designed this memorial, which is an oversize hot pink lamp. It is accompanied by text which runs along the side of the laneway, written by poet Prof Michael Taussig after consultation with various community groups. The text is also hot pink, and reads:

“This is a lane with a name and a lamp in memory of the woman who survived being beaten and raped here. She happened to be lesbian. When the sun sets this lamp keeps vigil along with you who read this in silent meditation.”

The text was not installed until 2011, because of some community objections to the use of confronting words such as ‘rape’ and ‘lesbian’, which led to concerns by the Beresford Hotel owners, who also own the pathway along the side of the lane and also provides electricity for the lamp. The Hotel was eventually convinced to support the installation of the text after a community campaign.
Interestingly , although the current memorial simply states that Mary “happened to be lesbian”, the original memorial was very much a project of the Lesbian and Gay community and included important GLBT symbols such as rainbows. The Mary’s Place film also makes clear that Mary was attacked because she was identified as a lesbian, and was subjected to many homophobic insults throughout the attack.

Questions:

• Do you know about the history of the Mary’s Place memorial?
• Why do you think this particular attack motivated the creation of a memorial, when women are subjected to violent attack and rape every day? 
• If you have visited the Mary’s Place memorial, how did it make you feel? Did it make you want to find out more, or take some kind of action?

Edge of the Trees, Museum of Sydney

The Edge of the Trees is an art installation by Fiona Foley and Janet Laurence commissioned as part of the development of the Museum of Sydney, which opened in May 1995. Althought most often referred to as an art installation, it is also a memorial that calls to mind not only the local Eora peoples or the colonisers and convicts of Sydney's history, but the painful history of their relationship to each other.
The title of the artwork is taken from a passage of text by Rhys Jones (1985) describing the moment of first contact between Aboriginal people and colonisers:

...the discoverers struggling through the surf were met on the beaches by other people looking at them form the edges of the trees. Thus the same landscape perceived by the newcomers as alien, hostile or having no coherent form, was to the indigenous people their home, a familiar place, the inspiration of dreams.

The Museum of Sydney is a heritage site located where the State's original Government House once stood. Just on the other side of the entry path, visitors to the Museum of Sydney and view the excavated foundations of this early colonial building through a glass display case. It is designed to be passed through by visitors on their way into the museum, but is set off to the side, so this is optional.

For those people who do choose to enter, the installation offers a strangely overwhelming experience, considering that it is near a very busy road in the centre of Sydney. Visitors find themselves surrounded by posts, a little bit like tree trunks but made of a variety of different materials that reference the history of Sydney, including aged timber, sandstone, and industrial steel girders. Some of the posts are inscribed with words: Eora place names; the names of convicts; fragments of colonials text. Others contain materials that reference the kinds of keeping and categorising that might be found within a museum, but also refer to Eora culture: ash, sand, shells.
Alongside these visual and tactile elements are sound recordings in both Eora and English. The artwork does not tell the story of colonisation, and may be 'unreadable' for visitors who don't already know this history. But, much like any memorial, for someone who understands something of the story it creates a sense of complexity and sadness.
Edge of the Trees was created in the 1990s, during Australia's official decade of Reconciliation. But Janet Laurence, an Aboriginal artist, has said that both the process of creation and the artwork itself were more about negotiated co-existence than reconciliation.

Questions:

Where is the line between an artwork and a memorial, if the artwork is about memory?

Sydenham Lounge, commemorating lost community

Sydenham is an inner-Sydney suburb within the City of Marrickville. I stumbled upon the Sydenham Lounge while looking for a Stolen Generations memorial that is also located in the Sydenham Green Park. The 'Lounge' is a group of sculptures of over-sized everyday objects you might find in a suburban home—a giant teapot at the entry to the playground, a big read couch covered with a mosaic throw-rug, and a giant garage door, which after a while you realise is more like a giant fireplace, surrounded by ceramic tiles printed with enlarged newspaper cuttings which give the clues of the history of the place.

What I slowly realised, looking at the garage door and then again at a floor map and plaque near one of the park's entrances, is that this green space was just an ordinary surburban area, until the homes within it were forcibly requisitioned by the Commonwealth Government and demolished in the early 1990s because they were in the flight path for Sydney Airport's third runway.

The story reads much like the plot of 1990s Australian movie The Castle, but without the happy ending. Sydenham in the early 1990s was a small, tight-knit community with a mix of Australian-born and migrant residents. Those born overseas mainly came from Greece, Yugoslavia prior to partition, Turkey and Vietnam (Dictionary of Sydney). This mix of backgrounds is reflects on the mosaic 'rug' lying across the sofa, which has fragments of text in various languages, as well as a pattern of small aircraft, houses, faces and domestic items such as cooking utensils.

Although aircraft noise was an issue, many residents did not want leave their homes. The Sydenham Lounge artworks express a sense of loss people felt at having to leave their homes and community, as well as a sense of anger and injustice. This is expressed through the newpaper articles printed on the the tiles on either side of the 'fireplace', which not only tell the story of the airport development but also the struggle by Sydenham residents to keep their homes. 

The name 'Sydenham Lounge' plays ironically on the idea of an airport lounge, as well as the comfortable room inside a home.

The plaque at the park entrance is surrounded by a colourful mosaic map, showing the streets that made up the area now covered by Sydenhame Green. It reads:

Sydenham Green was established as an urban parkland in 1999. Formerly the residetial heart of Sydenham, the site became available through requisition of aircraft noise affected home. Original the hunting grounds of the Cadigal people of the Eora nation, the area became a farmland after colonisation before residential subdivision in the nineteenth century. This map illustrates the former neighbourhood plan of Sydenham. The design of this parkland was developed in close consultation with residents of the local area as a cultural and recreational landscape, with the aim of bringing new life to Sydenham.  

While Sydenham Lounge was created as a public art project rather than a formal memorial, the sense of loss expressed, despite the playful nature of the artworks, make it feel like a commemorative space.

Stolen Generations Memorial at Reconciliation Place, Canberra

The Canberra Stolen Generations Memorial is located within Reconciliation Place, an area of land near the edge of Lake Burley Griffin and in the direct line between the Australian Parliament House and the Australian War Memorial. The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is also on this line, but you could easily visit Reconciliation Place without seeing the Tent Embassy, as it is placed further down the hill.

The centre of Reconciliation Place is a wide grassed area, around which runs a path. To the left and right of the central area the path, is punctuated by 'slivers' that tell the story of various aspects of Aboriginal history post-colonisation – some celebrating achievements, others acknowledging injustice or struggle. There are also red rocks engraved with inspirational quotes and with images copied from ancient rock paintings.

The story of the Stolen Generations is told by two 'slivers', the first of these is made stainless steele and slumped glass, and was part of the original Reconciliation Place design developed by the project team led by architect Simon Kringas which won the National Capital Authority competition.

One side of this sliver is printed with the image of a young boy, and  and has the word for 'child' written in some Aboriginal languages. The other side has a number of small reproductions of mid-twentieth century news clippings about Aboriginal children, and embedded in a recess (covered by perspex) is a coolamon – a traditional carrying plate used by some Aboriginal communities which represents the absent children. Audio of a lullaby is activated when visitors walk near the sliver.

The second 'sliver' was created because members of the Stolen Generations, their families and supporters, did not feel the original design adequately explained or acknowledged the pain and sense of loss caused by the policies of removal. Th design was developed after extensive consultations with Aboriginal communities, members of the Stolen Generations, and people who were involved in child care practices during that time.

This sliver is made of granite and caste iron, and is much more earthy in look and feel, referencing the role of Aboriginal peoples as traditional custodians of the land.

On one side, holes are drilled in the shape of Australia, big enough for people to leave notes in if they wish. Engraved into the metal surface are quotes which tell the stories of the stolen generations in their own words, along with some quotes from some of their non-Aboriginal care givers. On the other side, water runs down the concrete surface in small rivulets into a pool at the bottom.

At one end of the sliver, a metal plaque is embedded into the granite. It gives a history of the policy of child removal, including this paragraph:

This place honours the people who have suffered under the policies and practices. It also honours those people, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, whose genuine care softened the impact of what are
now recognised as cruel and misguided policies.

Reconciliation Place was conceived and built in the early 2000s, during the years of the Howard Government. Some people see it as a response to the 'Sorry' movement which demanded a Government apology in response to the 1996 Bringing Them Home Report into the forced separation of Aboriginal children from their families. Then Prime Minister John Howard refused to apologise, and although Reconciliation Place was built some people felt it didn't have the meaning it should have, because other acts of reconciliation were missing.

The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is located just to the north of Reconciliation Place; it is a much more overtly political statement about Aboriginal sovereignty in Australia.

Questions:

Is the process of talking and listening that takes place before a memorial is developed as important as the memorial itself?

Der Rufer (The Caller) dedicated to Victims of Torture

Der Rufer, which means "The Caller" in German, is a bronze sculpture of a calling man who stands in walkway outside the Art Gallery of WA.
For people not familiar with Perth, this area is known as the cultural precinct, and has a lot of pedestrian traffic. Most Perth people would have walked past this sculpture many times, but it was only after I started this project that I stopped to have a closer look, and realised the sculpture was dedicated in 1998 to "Victims and Survivors of Torture."
It seems I'm not the only person who hasn't noticed this dedication. When I've done internet searches about this sculpture, although it is mentioned on a number of sites, very few seem to be aware of the dedication.
The Perth Cultural Centre site mention briefly that the artist was a founding member of the Bauhaus School, and that there is a story that the man is said to be calling "peace".
The City of Perth's Art City flyer describes it like this:
Der Rufer was inspired when the artist was standing beside a man who called across a river to attract the ferryman on the other side. The figure in upright, forceful stance may symbolise the triumph of man’s spirit over oppression and adversity. The few swinging folds in the garment convey a sense of movement.
Neither of these descriptions mentions the dedication to torture victims.
There are at least two other versions of this sculpture. First, the caller appeared outside Radio Bremen in 1967. In this context, the calling man could be understood as a monument to democracy, representing freedom of speech; an important value for Marcks who lived through the Third Reich in Germany and was blacklisted by the Nazi regime.
In early 1989 another copy of Der Rufer was installed in West Berlin. The story goes that this calling man faced east, across the Berlin Wall, which was at that stage still in place. That statue is inscribed with a quote from Italian poet Francesco Petrarch which translates as, "I wander through the world, and cry 'Peace, Peace, Peace." (source: Fotoeins Fotopress.)
Perth’s Caller appeared in 1982, having been donated to the Gallery by CSR Limited. In the mid 1990s, some clients of ASSeTTS, the Association for Services to Torture and Trauma Survivors, expressed a sense of connection with the statue, with the idea of the man calling out. One of the Asetts counsellors decided to pursue this and, with the agreement of the Art Gallery of WA, on the first International Day of Victims of Torture, 26 June 1998, the statue was dedicated to both victims and survivors of torture. A tree was also planted, but was destroyed by vandals. Another tree was planted, but it died.

Questions:

Can this sculpture be understood to be a memorial if no one actually remembers it is?
Is there more to memorialising than engraving a plaque?
Are there still victims of torture among the people of Perth who use this walkway, who see The Caller and take comfort from him?