Jonathan Jones – Catalogue Essay
By Clotilde Bullen, Indigenous Curator, Art Gallery of Western Australia
This project ispart of the Perth Cultural Centre Ephemeral Public Art Program
Curated by Consuelo Cavaniglia - Artsource
Developed by the Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority
in partnership with the Department of Culture and the Arts
Occupy: (verb) to live or be established in (a house, flat, office etc.), to take up (time or space), to take and hold possession of, especially as a demonstration.
Collins English Dictionary (1993)
The recent Occupy movements, the Tent Embassies in Canberra and on Heirisson Island (Matagarup) in Perth, Western Australia, and the Single Nyoongar Land Claim (2) have brought into sharp focus the zones of contestation that are taking place in contemporary society as they relate to the negotiation of homelands, and the pattern of economic and socio-cultural exchange that is currently occurring.
Complex patterns of cultural exchange and interaction have caused extraordinary shifts in the configuration of occupation across the globe, but perhaps no more so than on and in the lands of colonised Indigenous peoples. Geographical dislocation has been instrumental in an almost fatal cultural displacement for Indigenous people across the continent. The legacy of removal from Homelands has forced Indigenous people to rapidly modify how connection and re-connection occurs to Country, kin and to culture.
The site-specific work of Jonathan Jones engages and challenges the viewer to consider ideas about the disrupted occupation of space and the concept of dislocation, both as it relates to Indigenous people and to a broader global context.
Jones is Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi – Indigenous peoples from central and northern New South Wales, respectively – and the establishing of an installation in prime Nyoongar territory – at, specifically, the centre of the largest public car park in the centre of Perth – could almost be construed as hostile, were it not for the explicit acknowledgment of the artist that he is, in fact, camping in another’s land, temporarily claiming space and country. The tarpaulin of the work becomes a metaphor for takeover, a very real and tangible thing of occupation. The construction, however, is a pretend place, a conjured improvisation of built and found form. The deliberately rudimentary space has nudged its way into this foreign cultural environment, and invites the viewer to contemplate the moveable and very transitory ‘history’ it offers.
Jones talks about his work ‘evoking common memories by working with domestic materials, minimal forms and designs, and historical moments of bicultural relationships’. (3) The use of the tarpaulin is suggestive of the ‘great Aussie tradition’ of camping, in which a typical Aussie weekend, particularly a long one, would commence with a three-hour drive in a designated direction, followed by the selection of a campsite and the pitching of the tent/dome/humpy; it would end usually with a sightseeing tour and shared meal. This benign signifier – the tarpaulin – functions in dual ways in Jones’ works. It operates simultaneously as a bland material, capable of provide a waterproof shelter to its occupants and used in countless habitable structures by holiday goers universally, and as a signifier of a foreign material, introduced to its context to cover, to claim, to deny, to keep out.
The notion of home is a critical organising metaphor for how we understand the relationship between individuals and society at large, and for how this work can be interpreted. A wide range of cultural and legal practices enshrine the home with various protections that ensure the dweller a degree of privacy, security, solitude and control over their lives there. (4) Jones’ temporary ‘home’ derides the western notion of ‘home’ in its flimsiness, its impermanence. A transient symbol of vagrancy, this ‘home’ offers none of the privacy, security or solitude stipulated by Weitzner.
Weitzner states that:
“Rights in general and privacy in particular are about boundaries: borders we erect around ourselves or those limitations that society is prepared to respect. The most fundamental of these demarcation lines are our home walls; the boundary of the home is often the principal dividing line between our public and private selves. Inside the home, we can expect to be free from arbitrary government intrusion, we have broad leeway in how we behave and use our property, and we can prevent others from entering and disturbing our solitude, even if they have strong reasons to communicate with us.”
Jones’ installation makes a pertinent point about the differing notions of occupation held by many Indigenous people that drastically conflict with widely-held western views about ‘home’. The conflict that is currently occurring (in relation to the occupation of place) between Aboriginal people and the broader community (authorities such as the police and government, neighbours etc.) are, in the opinion of the author, due in a large part to differing notions of home and occupation.
Many Aboriginal people consider ‘home’ as a concept to be much broader than the abode in which you live. Home isn’t just and doesn’t necessarily equate to the standard brick and tile three-bedroom abode. Home is your country; your mother’s country; your grandfather’s country. You may have only been born there. You may only go back there once every ten years. You might not have a house on the land. But it is Home and everything within it is to be utilised, cared for and protected in the appropriately handed-down manner.
If the principles above are applied, and home encompasses country and broader communal space, then the divide between public and private diminishes. Fighting that might happen behind closed doors, for example, is the same fighting that may be witnessed in the street, because of the broader public/private demarcation. With Indigenous people, a great deal happens in public. After all, you feel you have a right to behave as you wish in the safety and security of your home environment. Jones’ assemblage takes us into the heart of the public versus private debate being played out across the country at present. His work takes the viewer to a place where individual and collective memories collide with the skeletons of home and their loaded embodiments.
References:
(1) Macquarie Encyclopedic Dictionary, 2010 edition, Macquarie Dictionary Publishers Pty Ltd, Sydney
(2) the traditional country of the Nyoongar (also spelt Noongar and Nyungar) people of Western Australia extends roughly from Esperance at the southern tip of WA to just below Geraldton in the north-west and to Southern Cross in the east. On 17 December 2009 the State Government signed a Heads of Agreement with the South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council aimed at resolving the six Noongar native title claims over Perth and the south-west of WA by negotiation rather than by slow and costly legal action, which has been running in the federal court for twelve years.
The negotiations covered a wide range of issues including recognition of the traditional ownership of Noongar land, a range of health and education programs, and possible joint management of some national parks, as well as other initiatives aimed at strengthening Noongar culture, and community self-determination. The negotiation process aimed at resolving the Noongar native title claims and achieving a broader land settlement over Perth and the south-west of WA has started as of the date of this essay, and is expected to be finalised, and ready for implementation, by December 2012; from South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council, 2012, available at www.noongar.org.au
(3) from artist statement to author, 23rd February 2012
(4) Daniel J Weitzner, 2007, From Home to Home Page: New Challenges to Basic Notions of Privacy and Property, available at dig.csail.mit.edu/2007/05/ic-home-weitzner.html