Sara Irannejad, Sally Molloy, Mandana Mapar, Natasha Lewis Honeyman, Camille Serisier
History, its exposure, reinvention, and the availability of contemporary commentary has long provided inspiration for artists. In recent decades, the archive has been a source of often hidden histories that detail the treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders, including evidence of atrocities and deep-seated abuse of Australia’s original inhabitants. The efforts of researchers and writers, made available more widely through art has, I believe, developed the understanding and beliefs of many Australians.
However, in taking art into Brisbane’s historic houses, themselves bastions of colonialism and relics of settler culture, Natasha Lewis Honeyman curated a new form of interaction for the city, and noted the precedents for disrupting historic spaces with contemporary art, which are many and international. French palaces commonly host exhibitions of contemporary art, with names from Jeff Koons (Versailles, 2008-09), Anselm Kiefer (The Louvre, 2007-08), and Zao Wou-Ki (Chateau de Nemours, 2007-08), being recent examples.
Five contemporary artists—Mandana Mapar, Sally Molloy, Sara Irannejad, Camille Serisier and Lewis Honeyman herself—responded to the historic venues of Old Government House, Newstead House and Miegunyah House Museum, all in Brisbane. The brief suggested that work be created to speak to the historic narratives within the building, but also acknowledge the ‘emotive reverberations of history on the present’.1 The project drew attention to the personal stories and experiences of Brisbane settler personalities, particularly women whose lives are little discussed in the official histories, bringing these narratives into a broad cultural conversation.
Sally Molloy researched the endeavours of James Clark, resident in Newstead House from 1894-1897. She suggested they provided ‘a golden thread’ for which painting provided ‘a partial historical storyboard’.2 Clark was known as ‘The Pearl King’, owner of a