In response to The Portico Library's current exhibition, What it is to be here: Colonisation and Resistance, Dr Amanda Claremont explores how colonial domestication of supposedly unsettled land in Australia covers multiple traces, revealing that colonisers see the land but cannot read the country.
This is an online event.
What it is to be here: Colonisation and Resistance at The Portico Library
April 2020 marks 250 years since Lieutenant James Cook arrived, uninvited, onto Gweagal shores at Kamay (Botany Bay) in what is now Australia. For the local Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders, this event changed everything. Dispossessing them of their homes, lands and governance for the benefit of the newcomers and those far away in Britain. What it is to be here: Colonisation and resistance considers how this process of colonisation and First Nations people’s resistance to it continue to this day.
Subject to Covid-19 guidance, this exhibition can be viewed at The Portico Library until Monday 9 November 2020, or view the exhibition online via The Portico's website.