In May and June 2014, I worked in Central Australia, creatively re-enacting elements of the photographic work of anthropologists and photographers Frank Gillen and Baldwin Spencer, who produced one of the most influential records of aboriginal life over a period of 40 years between 1875 and 1912. Their work is a point of departure for a contemporary dialogue about how we see and represent ‘the Other’. With inhabitants of the central desert, I re-enacted the old images in the places where they were originally made. I invited those portrayed to bring their points of view and ideas into the process.
THE WAKE
Re-enacting the Spencer & Gillen photographic archive
(Temporal Dialogues #1)
In May and June 2014, I was working in Central Australia, trying to creatively re-enact elements of the renowned photographic work of anthropologists and photographers Frank Gillen and Baldwin Spencer, who produced one of the most influential records of aboriginal life over a period of 40 years between 1875 and 1912. I wanted to revisit their cardinal work, and use it as a point of departure for a contemporary dialogue about how we see and represent ‘the Other’. Since it’s birth, photography has been an instrument of power, which has been used as a vehicle for the categorising of people and ‘producing’ them in the minds of others. This project explores such processes of power and categorisation by engaging in a practical dialogue through photo repatriation, photo elicitation and photographic re-enactments made in collaboration with descendants of those people who were depicted in the original photographs. ‘The Wake’ is the first of three comparative ‘chapters’ (Central Australia, 2014; the Brazilian Amazon, 2015 and far eastern Siberia, 2015) each of which explore the notion of temporal dialogues through collaboration and photographic re-enactments.
I went into the field with a selection of photographs, which I used as the basis for extended photo elicitation with descendants of those people engaged by Spencer and Gillen. Together with inhabitants of the central desert, I wanted to re-enact the old images creatively in the places where they were originally made. I wanted to invite those portrayed to bring their points of view and ideas into the process.
One of the main themes that grew out of the archive work and subsequent photo elicitation was that of mourning, in particular as expressed in what is commonly referred to by Aboriginal people as ‘sorry business’. Mourning, I came to understand, was a particularly apt metaphor for the deplorable life conditions for Aboriginals in Australia today. On average, their life expectancy is 20 years lower than that of their fellow Australians. Hence, rituals and practices surrounding death are abundant and woven into the fabric of everyday life to an extraordinary extent in Aboriginal Australia. One of my main informants, Marie, herself suggested the title ‘The Wake’.
Contrary to the practice of most photographers, my main ambition was not simply to produce ‘good images’ but to employ photography as a collaborative and improvisational practice for opening up dialogue and generate qualitative knowledge in the dynamic junction between the archive, the field, my interlocutors and I. I wanted to create a space within which the people in front of the camera were invited, even encouraged, to perform themselves in dialogue with the past representations.
The project is mentored by the Swedish photographer J. H. Engström as part of Atelier Smedsby 2014-2015, and part of the research project Camera as Cultural Critique at Aarhus University. ‘The Wake’ is part of FOAM Talents 2015.