My work is based on research that I do. Firstly, it comes from family, historical photographs but a lot of the research comes from early historical prints during the late 1700s, early 1800s.
This particular work is based on a lithograph by the name of John Sykes, done in 1798, from Minang country down near Albany. The original work is called A Deserted Indian Village, an interesting work looking at first contact with Minang people. Then it had some interesting ideas with the title and the mia mia, the houses, the traditional homes being empty. I thought that was an interesting idea.
There's always, with historical prints, there's always an element of translation, artistic translation, that I find really interesting as well on how the landscape is translated through the lens of early, French or British artists.
There's a topographical map drawn over the top of that and that's reference to beginning of settlement. Where the land was surveyed and divided up for farming, and of course for indigenous people, private land ownership is kind of an alien concept to them.
There was some friction and there were times where indigenous people were going through trade routes and they would be trespassing on land. This work is called Wrong Side of the Hay (river). If you were caught on the west side of the Hay, there was a risk that you would be shot from trespassing. So, hence the title.
