INSPIRATION

The artist talks to Debika Ray about how her work shines a light on the oppression of Aboriginal people Which artists have most inspired you? I was introduced to Christian Boltanski’s work at art school. What drew me to An uncomfortable truth him was his acknowledgement of the victims of the Holocaust and of history, and the materials that he uses, such as Yhonnie Scarce photographs, clothing and lighting. I’m also heavily influenced by Aboriginal Australian artists and Vernon Ah Kee: I admire their You trained as a glassblower at the testing on Aboriginal people, particularly by rainfall and comprises 2,000 blown fearlessness and drive to create artworks South Australian School of Arts, and by the ethnographer Norman Tindale. glass yams suspended in a formation, that target the treatment of Aboriginal then studied Fine Art at the University In the late 1930s he travelled Australia 5m high and 3.5m wide. Death Zephyr people during the Frontier Wars – the of . How do you combine taking skin, blood, hair and saliva (2017) represents the low-lying clouds colonisation of Australia. I see their these schoolings in your work? samples and measuring the that were the most detrimental because work as historical documentation, My work is related to the colonisation of circumference of people’s body parts, they were so close to where people lived. much like my own practice. Australia and the treatment of Aboriginal in an attempt to classify them as fully or There are also works that reference Tell me about your residency at Ikon people, which I believe the country is yet part Aboriginal. My artwork comprises the children affected during that time: Gallery in . What interests to properly acknowledge. We often a series of scientific beakers in which are Fallout Babies (2016) is a series of cribs you about the local context and how referred to the ‘amnesia’ related to this 60 blown-glass bush bananas, coloured containing glass bush plums, which refer will this manifest in your work? colonisation, through genocide, eugenics in black lustre with a mirror-like quality. to different stages of pregnancy; in Only The is where ‘Aboriginal and blood quantum principles. The work is also about the dissection a Mother Could Love Them (2016), the the first calculations for the atomic bomb Even though I’m technically trained, of deceased bodies and the history of bush plumbs are deformed, to represent were written by physicists Otto Frisch people are I call myself an artist who uses glass, skeletal remains of Aboriginal people the children born without body parts. and Rudolf Peierls. Part of my residency pretty tough. rather than a ‘glass artist’, because for me being sent to museums around the How does travel fit into your work? will be about researching those glass is simply a medium to tell stories world. The bush bananas resemble Fieldwork is important. I visited scientists: hopefully I’ll spend time in Similarly, glass like this one. Aboriginal people are often corpses in various stages of Chernobyl, Fukushima and Hiroshima the lab where they worked and talk to has a lot of seen as fragile, but we are pretty tough – decomposition. I often use food to refer last year. I have sought out places outside historians who have written about them. we’ve dealt with a lot over the past 200 to our culture, as well as to bodies – bush Australia where First Nations people I will probably create a suspended strength’ years. Similarly, glass has a lot of plums and bush bananas as uteruses have been victims of genocide, such as work, in collaboration with scientific strength. Even though it’s delicate, or embryonic stages of pregnancy, Wounded Knee in South Dakota, where glassblowers in Birmingham, about the it doesn’t always break and, if it does, kidneys or hearts, as well as long yams more than 300 people were massacred internal structures of these weapons and there are always remnants left. to reference death and genocide. in 1890. I have been to concentration the equipment that might have been How does your work draw on your You were born in Woomera in South camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau around when they were developed. own personal and familial history? Australia. Has that influenced you? in Poland. I have also visited memorials Frisch and Peierls were aware of the Growing up as an Aboriginal woman in About 15 hours west of Woomera, where such as those in Popina Memorial Park danger of the nuclear atom when they Australia has been tough. I have often my family lived, is Maralinga, where the in Serbia. These travels were part of began, but continued to work on it faced questions around identity: I find British conducted nuclear testing in the a collaborative project – The Image is anyway. Not long after that came the it offensive when someone says I’m not 1950s. Dust and clouds travelled from the Not Nothing (Concrete Archives) – with Manhattan Project – and Hiroshima, black enough to be Aboriginal because site across the state making many people artist and writer Lisa Radford. Nagasaki and Maralinga. When you think I have fair skin and blue eyes. This is sick, and the infant death rate was high I will also produce a new body of work of weapons of mass destruction, it all part of a long history of finding ways during and after those tests. Recently I’ve within the next 12-18 months. In order sort of started in Birmingham. to oppress Aboriginal people. made work that references these events, to make work about these stories, you ‘Yhonnie Scarce’ is on show at the Ikon One of my works, The Cultivation which I felt were not being talked about. need to go to the sites, because they have Gallery, Birmingham, 9 April – 31 May. of Whiteness (2013), is about scientific Thunder Raining Poison (2015) is inspired memories you can feel when you visit. ikon-gallery.org

Far left: Glass Bomb (Blue Danube), 2015, handblown glass bomb and yams. Left: Only a Mother Could Love Them, 2016, glass and bush plums. Right: Thunder Raining Poison, 2015, 2,000 glass yams; all works by Yhonnie Scarce. Far right: Julie Gough, Dark Valley, Van Diemen’s Land, 2008, Tasmanian coal on nylon on oak and antlers GOUGH: ART GALLERY OF NEW SOUTH WALES GOUGH: ART GALLERY ALL YHONNIE SCARCE IMAGES © JANELLE LOW © JANELLE ALL YHONNIE SCARCE IMAGES

16 March/April 2020 Crafts Crafts March/April 2020 17