cautionary tales
One of the most disconcerting aspects of contemporary Australian political life is the reinstatement of the idea of a totalising national ethos. Forged by the colonial pioneers, tempered in Gallipoli and the Somme and pumped up by the Institute of Sport, this reconditioned Australian embodiment could not be further from the apologetic, self-deprecating incarnation to which so many Australians once felt such a dear attachment. Instead we now behold a concerted campaign of sublimation - the wholesale conversion of a self-effacing national narrative into epic terms which celebrate the Olympian, the shareholder and the Range Rover. In such a climate, embarrassment and a longing for the quieter days when Australia was just 'the arse end of the world ' have become the unofficial postures of an increasingly demoralised urban population.
In his latest photographic project, Brisbane-based photographer Peter Milne provides us with a ritual experience in which the ghosts of this latent identity can be evoked once more and the sublime pretenses of Howard's Australia can be interrogated. 'Cautionary Tales' is Milne's audio-visual project, held at the Pensioners and Superannuates League Hall in Brisbane's West End. A work in progress, this project is part of a broader body of work entitled 'When Nature Forgets'. The focus of Milne's work for the past five years or so has been the figurative dioramas scattered throughout Australia 's regional centres courtesy of local historical societies. The resulting images, now numbering in their hundreds, reveal a bizarre yet strangely familiar world in which discarded boutique dummies stand in for historical figures. 'Cautionary Tales' takes the form of a slide show in which each of the images appears in quick succession to a soundtrack of