Before colonisation, before invasion of Tasmania there were areas known to be good hunting grounds, where wallaby or kangaroo were plentiful, where Aboriginal people would gather, reconnect, establish and negotiate future plans. Since invasion, places like this are heavy with the loss of my people. They reveal by our everyday absence the wanton annihilation of our ancestors by newcomers who took and kept these bountiful lands. Terminology shifts and splits, and hunting grounds became the places where our people were destroyed, hunted to ground, with scant clues in the written records confirming what we know.
- Julie Gough, 2017
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Julie Gough
Hunting Ground, Van Diemen's Land 2016
2 channel HD video projection:- 4k video projection, 16:9, colour, sound, 12.26 mins, edited by Angus Ashton- HD video projection, colour, silent , 12.26 mins, edited by Angus Ashton
10 prints on BFK Rives paper 280gsm, printed by Cicada Press, 46.2 x 32.9 cm (individual print size)Triptych: installation size: dimensions variableEdition of 5 (#4/5)AU$ 35,000.00 -
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VIDEO COMPONENTS
Hunting Ground (Haunted)
Julie Gough
Hunting Ground (Haunted) Van Diemen’s Land 2016-17HD video projection, MP4, 16:9, color, sound, 12:26 min
Edited by Angus AshtonHunting Ground (Haunted) Van Diemen’s Land is the result of trying to find some of the places that match the few written accounts of violent attacks on Aboriginal people in VDL (Van Diemen’s land) by colonists in the first 35 years post invasion. At these sites I placed recently produced etched and silkscreened text ‘posters’ relating 10 from the multitudes of these murderous encounters. The resulting film is an articulation of otherwise, usually hidden histories; a demonstration of our island as a crime scene; and a record of my reconnection with these places, establishing there, en site, that we continue, were not entirely annihilated, and that we remember.- Julie Gough, 2017 -
Hunting Ground (Pastoral) Van Diemen’s Land 2016-17HD video projection, 4:3, color, silent, 12:26 min
Edited by Angus AshtonOnly two events of murderous violence upon Aboriginal people were termed ‘massacres’ by VDL colonists, despite likely more than 5000 Tasmanian Aboriginal people ‘disappearing’ during the first 30 years post invasion of our island. There are about one hundred printed ‘episodes’ of violent ‘encounter’, and surely many hundreds or thousands more that weren’t recorded, with no Aboriginal testimony, or likely survivors. Given its bounded island status, Tasmania is a place where countless episodic and intentional murders of Indigenous people occurred. This place can also be understood as one single massacre site where our ancestors suffered a relentless massacre of long duration and wide reach.
The evidence for what happened here is often a marked absence, absence of place names inscribed in our language across the island, absence of most of our families during generations of exile in Bass Strait, absence of acknowledgement of these ‘difficult’ histories on interpretation statewide. What is present are thousands of artworks by which colonising occupiers claimed place and strategically invented peaceful pastoral beginning stories for their later progeny to stand on and by.- Julie Gough, 2017
Chronology of artworks as re-presented in Hunting Ground (Pastoral) Van Diemen's Land :
R. McCormick, R.N.
Risdon, Tasmania - The residence of T. Gregson, Esq.
Lithograph
Vincent, Brooks, Day & son
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
I.O. Ommaney Esqr
New Norfolk from the Governor’s House
Lithograph, printed by C.Hullmandel
Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, HobartJohn Glover (1767 – 1849)
Launceston and the River Tamar, c.1832
oil on canvas
595 x 136.5 cm
Art Gallery of New South Wales
W C Piguenit (1836 - 1914)
Butts of Ben Lomond, 1878, Hobart
oil on canvas
61.0 cm x 92.0 cm
from the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
A M and A R Ragless Bequest Fund 1971
Joseph Lycett (1774 - 1825)
View on the Macquarie River, Van Diemen’s Land, near the Ford at Argyle Plains
L.Lycett Delt et Execut.t London.
published Apri1 1825, by J.Souter, 73, St Pauls Church Yard
aquatint, hand col. ; plate mark 23.2 x 33 cm
Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, Hobart
Dessin par L Lebreton, Lithc par P.Blanchard
Green-Pons – Ile Van-Diemen
Gide Editeur, Lith. De Thierry Freres a Paris
Voyage au Pole sud et Dans L’Oceanie. Atlas Pittoresque
Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, Hobart
Francis Russell Nixon (attributed) (1803 – 1879)
Oatlands [from the N.E. end of Lake Dulverton showing the Callington Mill], c.1850
drawing, pencil on cartridge paper, 190 x 279 mm
Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, Hobart
Thomas Evans Chapman (1788 – 1864)
Richmond, Van Dieman's Land, 1843
watercolour on card
420 x 585 mm
Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, Hobart
John Richardson Glover (1790 – 1868)
On the slopes, Nile, Lilyburn, c.1840
grey wash and ink on paper
11.8 x 19 cm
Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, Hobart
John Glover (1767 – 1849)
“Montacute” Bothwell, c.1838
oil on canvas
76 x 114.5 cm
private collection
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PRINTS
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installation instructions
Video components
- These two videos are 10 segments each, exactly the same length, and are to run ‘synched’ with each other.
- Both films should be installed such that they are both able to be within a viewer’s eyeshot at the same time, ie. seen simultaneously.Hunting Ground (Haunted), Van Diemen’s Land is 16:9 ratio, filmed at 4k, with sound.
- It is only to be projected (and not shown on any screen)
- The width for projection is ideally 4.8 m wide x 2.7 m high and the work is to be projected from the floor upwards.
- Sound is ideally presented down from the ceiling by two + speakers
- Discreet bench seating is preferred - about 3 metres back from the projection
- Contact the gallery/artist for case-by-case discussion/approval for any different installation / scale propositionsHunting Ground (Pastoral) Van Diemen’s Land is 3:4 ratio, no sound
- should be on an adjacent wall to Hunting Ground (Haunted) Van Diemen’s Land + (Series of Prints) and not on the same wall.
- this film is a smaller projection. It is of 10 modified colonial artworks and to be scaled to look the size of an actual colonial frame painting eg. 75 x 100 cm approx.
If projected:
- When the work is projected It can be projected without any frame.
- If it is to be projected inside a frame then it needs to be one resembling those framing landscape oil on canvas paintings by John Glover.- The internal space within the frame = internal wall measurement to be an average of c. 75 x 100 cm (h x w).
If on flat screen:
- If this work is shown in a 3:4 flat screen size of approx.. 75 x 100 cm (h x w). If a screen is used then a colonial style gilt frame – as per those used to frame landscape oil on canvas paintings by John Glover must be fitted to the screen to conceal all parts except the actual screen and fittings.
- Contact the gallery/artist for case-by-case discussion/approval for any different installation propositionsSeries of Prints
Hunting Ground (Haunted) Van Diemen’s Land (series of 10 prints)
- This series of 10 prints is ideally installed as a row of 10 unframed prints with a 20cm gap between each print.
- They should be nailed to the wall in the top corners only of each, as per images provided, with nails provided.
- The prints should be on the opposite or adjacent wall to the video projection Hunting Ground (Haunted) Van Diemen’s Land and not on the same wall as Hunting Ground (Pastoral) Van Diemen’s Land
- Contact the artist for case-by-case discussion/approval for any different installation propositions.The room can be narrow, and long, and should be dark, except for lighting of the prints
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exhibition history
With Secrecy and Despatch
Campbelltown Art Centre
09 April - 13 June 2016
Defying Empire: 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial
National Gallery of Australia
26 May - 10 September, 2017
Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection
University of Virginia
8 September - 31 December, 2017
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Dr Julie gough
