Daniel Browning, Presenter, Radio national
Opening remarks on concrete, 10 may 2014
I would like to begin by acknowledging the
Boonwurrung, whose lands extend across the city
of Melbourne with the Wurundjeri, Taungerong and
Wathaurung. The iteration, the uttering or speaking of
those names, those people, has a lot to do with the
exhibition you will see here today at MUMA.
Memorials, public or not, sanctioned or not, are cues
for the memory, antidotes to forgetting. Memorials
sanction a way of thinking about history, sometimes
of unmaking or styling history. We make history when
we memorialise. They are about a spirit or distilled
truth, collective and individual. They valorise, or in their
most effective iteration, they bear witness. But in this
exhibition there are also images of longing and hope.
There are images of buildings, concrete forms, of
deconstruction and erosion, of disappearance, ruin and
impermanence, attempts to salvage memory, and to
document its decay, its fragility. This exhibition is local
and global at the same time.
I am drawn to certain works in this exhibition. Ricky
Maynard’s photographs of the Bass Strait Islands which
work beautifully with those by Kader Attia of Algiers.
Amid concrete blocks to deter any kind of landing,
people we suppose might be refugees gaze across
the water, searching for a haven. Jananne al-Ani’s film
Shadow sites II, its hypnotic aerial images shot from
a fixed-wing aircraft surveying archaeological and
contemporary sites across the Middle East. You’re
never quite sure what you’re looking at; the past or the
present.
This exhibition brings to my mind a lonely memorial in
a sand peninsula in far northern New South Wales. A
burial ground where my ancestors rest. You couldn’t
imagine a more fragile even precarious place for a
memorial. It’s buffeted by the pounding waves of the
Pacific Ocean on one side, and the twisting mangroves
and rivulets of the coursing Tweed River on the other.
Before too long king tides and erosion will reclaim that
burial ground.
A few years ago, the cemetery, a historic site, was hit
by vandals who spray-painted racist graffiti on the few
permanent structures in the grounds. There are only
two headstones in the cemetery, all the other graves –
about 150 or so – are unmarked. One belongs to my
uncle Samuel Browning, who fought in the latter stages
of the First World War. His is clearly a Commonwealth
war grave, the rising sun badge says so. His grave was
not touched. But I find no consolation in that. I have
seen a postcard he sent home from London in 1918.
It’s actually a photograph of a monument: Nelson’s
column in Trafalgar Square.
I want to thank the Director Charlotte Day, and
particularly the Curator Geraldine Barlow and the staff
here at MUMA for the kind invitation to speak today.
I hope you enjoy the exhibition.
There’s a lot to see, a lot to contemplate: Jamie North’s
eroding columns springing to life with native plants;
Rä di Martino’s photographs of abandoned Star Wars
film sets in Morocco; Laurence Aberhart’s sequence of
ANZAC memorials; Callum Morton’s literal monument,
a tarpaulin-covered cardboard box. James Tylor’s
bush dwellings are signs of the Aboriginal presence
in the pastoral landscape, gentle interventions, and
Nicholas Mangan’s installation is a dark monument to
obsolescence. An experience more than an artwork. As
much as it’s possible, the works in this exhibition are
locked in a tight dialogue, speaking to each other and
deepening our awareness.
**
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