4. Julie Gough Julie Gough
Hair Differen@a@on, 1994 Tooth Avulsion, 1994
Medical series, 1994 (detail) Medical series, 1994 (detail)
;n, synthe;c and human hair, wax, stainless steel, chrome, acrylic ;n, synthe;c and plaster teeth,
103.0 x 49.5 x 35.5 cm mixed media, chrome, acrylic
103.0 x 49.5 x 28.0 cm
8. Julie Gough
Julie Gough
Earwax Consistency, 1994
Brain capacity
Medical series, 1994 (detail)
Medical series, 1994 (detail)
Tin, wax, plas;c, acrylic, mixed media
Mixed media, variable dimensions
5.5 x 29.5 x 40.0 cm Cabinet: 89.0 x 51.0 x 40.0 cm
9. Julie Gough
Intelligence Testing - The Porteus Maze Test, 1994
Medical series, 1994 (detail)
tin, plastic, sawdust, paint, sawdust, chrome, acrylic
170.0 x 39.5 x 29.5 cm
19. Julie Gough
GENETIC POOL ‐ MOREE, 1996
Washing machine, 1960s men’s bathers, postcards showing swimming pools as central scenic spot of rural townships.
Variable dimensions
The elements in this piece are intended to bring together a distanced viewing of the ‘colour bar’ policy enforced in some rural
townships’ swimming pools in Australia un;l the 1960s. In the mid‐1960s Sydney University students joined Charles Perkins on a
bus journey through rural NSW to protest this blatant form of racial discrimina;on. This event which brought world aken;on to
Australian inequi;es was named the ‘Freedom Ride’. Although the ‘Freedom Ride’ focused on swimming pools, it was a
metaphor for discrimina;on at every level of Australian society. The target was Moree where heated conflict took place
between ac;vists and locals. The ac;vists finally akained entry for Aboriginal children to the town pool amer ini;al false
promises of access were revoked.
This piece gained real momentum and inspira;on amer I viewed a documentary two years ago about the
‘Freedom Ride’. One local protester, a Moree resident, recounted a story explaining the town’s fear of allowing
Aborigines to swim amongst ‘whites’ in the pool ; it was (supers;;ously) believed that white women could
become pregnant from bathing where Aboriginal men or youths had swum !! Thus, this piece, with its
test‐tubes filled with a white milky substance and a dozen pairs of bathers spinning in a pseudo‐scien;fic centrifugal disinfec;ng
mo;on, is sugges;ng the bizarre no;ons and dangerous beliefs which start at home
and spread between towns and beyond.
21. Unknown, 1830
Julie Gough Governor Arthur’s Proclama;on to the Aborigines
Human nature and Material culture, 1995 Van Diemen’s Land
carpet, bathroom scales, oil on ;n (Image reproduced in oil paint on ;n disc within
Variable dimensions bathroom scales in Human nature and Material culture.)
Acquired Na;onal Gallery of Australia
27. Julie Gough
PEDAGOGICAL (INNER SOUL) PRESSURE 1996
40 pairs of used‐school shoes (20 black/20 brown), old s;lts, shoe shine box, Govt. Photos of Aboriginal children in Sydney’s Luna Park Rotor
Ride in the 1960s, (Faked) typical child behaviour slides, internal lights.
This piece developed from a realisa;on that the representa;on of children and their directed and essen;ally controlled development from
the Ins;tu;ons they must nego;ate (including School, and various media ‐ television and print) is actually quite a sinister and longterm
manipula;ve state‐approved exercise in producing safe and banal ci;zens.
The physical body of the work focuses on images from a US Government set of 1970 Child Behaviour Kit slides ‐ which depict children in
various states of fakery ‐ imita;ng fear, happiness, play, parental interac;on and pain. These images are placed into 40 internally lit, and
worn pairs of school‐shoes ‐ 40 black/40 brown.
The sheer mul;tude of ‘staged’ enactment's of what are supposed to be the ‘real’ experiences of childhood, actually negate any possibili;es
of the factual by the repe;;ous usage of the same children in different configura;ons. Thus, by a type of historical inves;ga;on I have not
been duped into believing that the Photographic is necessarily the truth.
Similarly, within the shoe alignment at the centrepoint of this installa;on is fixed a shoe‐shine‐box, above which runs a ver;cal row of b/w
images of Aboriginal children (from a NSW Children’s Home), whom, during 1966 had a day‐out to Luna Park, Sydney ‐ where they were
faithfully recorded and photographically documented ‘having a good ;me’ by the Home’s Administra;on. This par;cular set of images of the
children in the ROTOR ‘ride’ resembles ;me‐lapse photography by the various heights they are shown as ‘pasted’ to the wall by the
centrifugal‐force of the ride. These children, in resembling a scien;fic experiment are actually mirroring their actual life‐experience of being
manipulated and controlled by the Government of that era. The two sets of images thus u;lise Ins;tu;onally developed documentary format
to convince the public that the invented (or par;al) moment is the Absolute and the Actual.
32. Julie Gough
Brown Sugar, 1995/6
mixed media
180 x 300 x 15 cm
Exhibited Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart and 24 Hr Art, Darwin. Collection the artist
44. Julie Gough
Folklore, 1997
Vintage curtains, Tasmanian oak light box showing image of diorama in Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart
190 x 300 x 15 cm
Collection the artist
47. Julie Gough
Shadow of the Spear, 1996
Ti‐ee, slip cast ceramic eggs, hand burnt text into Tasmanian oak.
Variable dimensions
This project’s central argument is as follows:
George Augustus Robinson's account relates a hugely significant moment in Tasmanian, Australian, and my own family's history. George
Augustus Robinson recorded the incident when he promised a future that he could not possibly render in reality. This was a desperate lie to a
people equally desperate to believe in their own survival.
Years later, Mannalargenna cut off his hair aboard ship north of Swan Island, probably as an act of grieving when he finally lost all hope. He
died of pneumonia shortly amerwards on December 4, 1835 on Flinders Island ‐ one month amer Robinson had transported him to Wybalenna
from mainland Tasmania and four years amer he had first met and begun travelling with Robinson on his ‘Friendly Mission’.
The quoted passage leapt from page 394 of 1073 pages of incessant details of meals and climate which swamped and served to render this
occurrence less dis;nct in the body of words which had consumed and subsumed it.
This account was made personally potent by ;me spent in the far north east of Tasmania during the genesis of the work which became
Shadow of the Spear (1997). I witnessed across the sea the same islands as did the people in the story seven genera;ons ago. Mannalargenna
is my great great great great grandfather.
The power of the physical presence of the site, and the overlapping seams of history connec;ng then and now, became apparent to me when
at the loca;on. I realised that a material conjunc;on between past and present can provide the dialogue and means for a story, apparently set
within a closed‐book, to be reconsidered within a visual art‐prac;ce.
As a consequence, I made the materials described in the journal and placed them alongside the words from that ;me. They work together to
speak of my awareness of the incomplete transac;on, and they express the chance for a resolu;on to take place when memory is reac;vated.
48. 6th August, 1831, Opposite Swan Island, north east Tasmania.
This morning I developed my plans to the chief Mannalargenna and explained
to him the benevolent views of the government towards himself and people.
He cordially acquiesced and expressed his entire approbation of the salutary
measure, and promised his utmost aid and assistance.
I informed him in the presence of Kickerterpoller that I was commissioned by
the Governor to inform them that, if the natives would desist from their wonted
outrages upon the whites,
they would be allowed to remain in their respective districts and would have
flour, tea and sugar, clothes &c given them; that a good white man would dwell
with them who would take care of them
and would not allow any bad white man to shoot them, and he would go about
the bush like myself and they then could hunt. He was much delighted.
The chief and the other natives went to hunt kangaroo: returned with some
swan's eggs which the chief presented me as a present from himself - this was
an instance of gratitude seldom met with from the whites.
Robinson, G.A., Friendly Mission: The Tasmanian Journals and Papers (of) George
Augustus Robinson, 1829 - 1834, ed. N.J.B. Plomley, Tasmanian Historical Research
Society, Hobart, 1966.
Text above placed on six poker‐worked Tasmanian Oak slats
within the shadows of the spears
72. Julie Gough
Stand, 2001 (detail)
Ti-tree, gas lamp
8 x 8 x 7 ft Installation for ten days and ten
nights on a hill on Midlands Highway, Lovely
Banks, Tasmania containing ever lit lamp.
81. Julie Gough
Chase, 2001
Ti-tree sticks, jute, cotton, steel
Approx. 300 x 240 x 300 cm
Site specific installation commissioned for nineteenth century gallery in National Gallery of Victoria. Installed
October 2002 - July 2004
Collection of the National Gallery of Victoria
90. Julie Gough
TransmutaIon
Brigham Young University Museum of Art, Provo, Utah
Sept 2003 ‐ April 2004
A disturbing combina;on of materials and spa;al rela;onships are the means by which I generated an unsekled atmospheric space. Transmuta;on was a large
installa;on that simultaneously evoked sensa;ons of familiarity and uncertainty.
I am interested in exploring liminal (in‐between) sites in my work. Spaces that may be actual (eg: corridors, airports, carports, shorelines, spaces of travel/
transporta;on) or imagined (eg: myth, folktale, memory, dreams, filmic, television, hypno;c spaces).
Transmuta;on hovered in materiality and meaning between science, the inexplicable ‐ and home‐handicram. Physically, the work consisted of 33 pillows (the size
of air plane passenger pillows). Each pillow was made of white cokon (ex. Royal Hobart Hospital sheets) with postcard images of Utah desert places and Utah
insects digitally printed (faded‐out) on one surface of each pillow.
These pillows had real and fake human hair fringing on each side. These pillows were suspended with white cokon threading on each corner to rise from just above
floor level to a height of approx. 1/4 distance from the ceiling to visually present as three staircases of a tripod structure. Each ‘staircase’ consisted of 11 pillows.
These flights of ‘steps’ triangularly opposed each other, to meet at a spherical space (gap) of approx. 3 feet at the top. As aforemen;oned, these pillows suggested
a staircased ‘tripod’.
A spotlight shone down from /near the ceiling and directed a beam of very bright light through the space where the pillows hovered above a spotlit area of
approximately one metre space on the floor. This light illuminated an approximately 25cm length golden ‘cocoon’, which was ‘trembling’ (due to a concealed
electrical device fiked inside the ‘cocoon’ and under the flooring) in the centre of the light beam and within the pillow tripod legs. A blue and a red electrical wire
(not ‘live’) was alligator‐clipped to either end of this cocoon and these led across to two old fashioned medical‐looking monitors siZng side by side upon a medical‐
looking (Stainless steel) stand/trolley on wheels. One monitor depicted an irregular EKG heartbeat reading. The other monitor will show a video (repeated) of the
following footage: (1) slightly fuzzy b/w (40 seconds) footage of someone (me) running toward then dar;ng away from the camera in a lightly forested zone in
riverside Melbourne wearing a pillowcase over my head. This footage will then cut to (2) me lying on the forest floor with my hair emerging through ;ny holes in
the pillowcase (15 seconds), then
(3) fuzzy tv waves (8 seconds), then (4) b/w dead‐screen (15 seconds) then back to (1).
Adjacent to these monitors stood a hospital bed‐trolley with one stainless steel side‐arm in the down posi;on. This ‘bed’ held a makress and white crinkled sheets
and a ‘strange’ altered pillow (altera;on s;ll to be determined) ‐ all appearing as though someone/something has just got off the trolley…Near this trolley, one wall
was held transfixed by a spot‐lit ;ny sec;on of lacy curtain lacy is struck solid – as if caught in a gust of wind from an alterna;ve universe.
This work represented surrealist, forensic, futuris;c and also domes;c spaces. It offered an uncomfortable unifica;on of the personal and the cultural, the medical
and the media worlds. The work intended to suggest that other realms of being and understanding coexist on this planet. This was not intended to be an ‘obvious’
work – its meaning was intended to drim and be completely different and ‘completed’ differently (ie: “understood” differently) by each viewer.
Themes that I am interested in that I am obliquely referring to in this work include:
* Iden;ty as perceived by: science and science fic;on, DNA, medical and psychological tes;ng.
* the world of dreams vs. reality: what is the conscious and subconscious ?
* fear of difference, change and personal growth
* the role of the familiar and the unfamiliar in shaping who were are
* the unexpected: confron;ng a space of uncertainty
* natural and simulated worlds
* places of encounter ‐ and hence the space of witness narra;ve in crea;ng personal truths/stories/futures
* the Alien and the UFO in popular culture
* Absence and presence – traces and presences beyond the everyday
* The Amerlife, rest, sleep, sleepwalking, other dimensions
95. Julie Gough
Promissory Note ~ Opposite Swan Island, 2005
Tea-tree, timber, string, fur
229 h x 240 w x 130 d cm
Flinders University Collection, Adelaide
96. Promissory note – opposite Swan Island as with Shadow of the Spear takes that
same moment and day of a promise later seen to be empty and reworks things
present of the place and transaction into visual art : Tea tree, time, memory, light and
dark, words burnt into memory and string that binds. My understanding is that
Tasmanian Aboriginal people on that day were promised that if they put down their
weapons, here taken to mean spears, they would, in return, be able to live and hunt
freely in their country ever more. Robinson is making explicit his, and by extension
as an employed representative of the British Government, the Official understanding
that Tasmanian Aboriginal people clearly recognised and held ownership and rights
to their own country. They laid their spears down in surrender as a clear response to
this and other such 'promises' in order to regain responsibility for and free
movements across their respective lands.
In Promissory note – opposite Swan Island tea tree sticks activate story and place
from the past into a pointed formation reminiscent of a light. They metaphorically
track movement through time of countless unlit firesticks. Awaiting re-ignition these
bare bones of traditional means of warmth, light, meals shared and stories told have
been essentially extinguished over the past 200 years through the actions of
European invasion. The tea tree sticks also resemble a glowing ball of artificial light
that emanates today from Swan Island lighthouse. Built in 1842 some years after the
events I am referring to, its light powerfully cuts into the dark of the night across my
north eastern coastal country today and for me ties past and present together as it
sears the skies. The stick of symbolic light is placed geographically in the work at
the point on the silhouette of Swan Island where the lighthouse is located in actuality.
The tea tree sticks also take the form of a dandelion, symbolically blown by some
cultures to make wish come true, as I today often do in reflection of this promise and
how it could have been and never was.
The winds and the plants and the rocks still hold secrets and lies told to and by
people, the loneliness and windswept beauty of my sleeping country is in barren form
in this work about the loss in remembering what no longer is.
Julie Gough
13 February 2005
Ref 1: Robinson, G.A., Friendly Mission: The Tasmanian Journals and Papers
(of) George Augustus Robinson, 1829 - 1834, ed. N.J.B. Plomley, Tasmanian
Historical Research Society, Hobart, 1966.
Ref 2: Julie Gough, Shadow of the Spear, 1997. Six ti-tree spears, six slip-cast
ceramic swans’ eggs, six rows of pyrographically (hand burnt) copperplate
text on Tasmanian oak slats placed in the six shadows cast by the spears
leaning on the wall. Dimensions 6 x 6 ft, acquired by the Art Gallery of Western
Australia.
97. In 1994 I first made note of those words found on page 394 of 1073 pages in the
1966 mammoth transcription by N.J.B. Plomley of George Augustus Robinson’s
journal. In 1996 my first artwork clearly based on the incomplete transaction, our
unfinished business : Shadow of the Spear was completed. The words from this
diary extract sang strong when I visited the area of that verbal and inscribed promise
six generations later to realise that looking across to Swan Island brought much
personal anguish about losses and absences. Standing there, alone at that place,
also brought vivid clarity about the importance of remembering what has gone
before. I realised during the making of Shadow of the Spear that I had a path and
task set; that of translating into inviting and approachable visual art forms the written
and subsumed histories of cultural invasion, collision and trauma that has plagued
Tasmania, Australia and Indigenous peoples everywhere.
Four years after Robinson made that promise Mannarlargenna was exiled from his
homeland to Flinders Island in Bass Strait - where most Tasmanian Aboriginal
people were shipped who survived the first 30 years of invasion. On the journey
across, after stopping at Swan Island, Mannarlargenna held a telescope and studied
his country with great intent as it grew ever smaller. Mooring next at Green Island
Mannarlargenna cut off all his hair, symbolic of great loss. Mannarlargenna died on
Flinders Island one month later from what was medically diagnosed as pneumonia.
continues…
