Terror Island (Wish You Were Here)
Like each work in Ryan Presley’s recent show at Boxcopy, the title Terror Island (Wish You Were Here) raises many complex ideas in a wry, spare and deceptively simple way. The ‘terror’ in Terror Island, of course, makes connections between Terra Australis, the hypothetical southern continent proposed by European map makers before the discovery of Australia by Europeans, for which the nation is named, and the current framing of the violence of some people as noble and that of others, specifically those resisting colonial control, as illegitimate. Terror invokes, as well, the uniquely Australian colonial doctrine of terra nullius, which labelled pre-colonial Australia empty, erasing 80,000 years of human history on this continent. In addition to highlighting the way the application of the word island, rather than continent, to Australia supports the idea of colony and erases First Nations boundaries, the ‘island’ of the title makes a tongue-in-cheek reference to reality television shows such as Survivor and Temptation Island, which turn everyone into losers and winners and make a game of exile. The word ‘island’ also invokes current Australian treatment of asylum seekers, gently referencing the familiar irony of colonial Australians referring to those seeking asylum as boat people. The word ‘you’ in the parenthetical subtitle launches a challenge, forcing viewers to think about which side of statements about violent colonialism they may stand on. The word ‘wish’ stresses the deception in both the historical doctrine of terra nullius and the illusion that the policy of colonial erasure is over. But it is the word ‘here’ that is most important in the phrase; as a phenomenological statement, ‘here’ announces the enduring presence of First Nations people