This work reflects on a form of psychogeography that ties felt experience and landscape together. Drawing specifically on the forgetting of the history of atrocities on Wadjemup (Rottnest Island) and the 400 unmarked graves now situated there, this work maps out the internal residue of this island.

In the photograph of Governors Lake, Aaron Wyatt (son of first Indigenous MP Ken Wyatt, successful musician and viola player, and regular actor in McMillan’s films and photographic works) stands holding a clay mass from the salt lake. The lake is situated at the base of the hill where Aboriginal men were buried.

Cast from this muddy soil, the bronze sculpture acts like a heavy lump that one might feel internally as a reminder of trauma, and also the shadow of what has been lost or forgotten. The canvas acts as a cathartic expression of this.

The 60’s sideboard is a reference to this time. One leg is missing – in its place history books are used as a prop. These particular books were published in an attempt to provide a national framework and identity for Settler Australia. At this time, books on (but not by) Aboriginal cultures were also being written about, romanticized and categorised. We are the children of this history. Hidden away, almost unseen in the sideboard is a piece of screwed up black card. Originally part of a paper series called remembering to breathe, the scrunched card makes physical a persistent anxiety and tension.

In 1963, Wadjemup (Rottnest Island) ceased to be use as an Aboriginal prison, the same decade that Aboriginal people were federally declared Australian citizens. The references to domestic interiors, the painted wall, the ‘arranged’ artworks, remind us that these are our histories, hidden away in the homes we live in.

Winner of the 2012 Invitation Art Award