Biloela: afore and beyond

This exegesis examines a trajectory of incarceration when young destitute and neglected girls in New South Wales were sent to institutions. I identify and research three Australian colonial sites: Newcastle Military Barracks 1867-1871, Biloela on Cockatoo Island 1871-1887, and the Parramatta Industrial School for Girls 1887-1901. These child welfare sites are where marginalised girls were displaced from society, and at times suffered under gross mismanagement. The goal of my research is to enrich the records of the past with an understanding of the girls’ lives. Motivated by the lack of visual records I have exposed the brutality of their lives, explicitly identifying traumatic events in my creative outcomes by including strait jackets and stretchers. By constructing artist books I also question the archives pertaining to the three sites, all of which are in-situ today and heritage listed. As a result of the seeming ambivalence to this shameful period in child welfare history, my acknowledgement as an artist has been to create artist books that form a themed series of contemporary archives. The books for the first of my two exhibitions, Reparation: Biloela 1871-1887, were exhibited as a site-specific installation on Cockatoo Island, Sydney Harbour in 2017. The collection of sixteen books perpetuate a transition of information from passively recorded to publicly available. The creative component and second exhibition, Biloela: afore and beyond, incorporates artists’ books, and photographs from the Biloela site with an installation of art objects to form a contemporary archive that encompasses the three sites and the transitioning of the girls from one location to the next. It explores objects, policies, actions, and events pertaining to the phenomenon of the girls clearly mismanaged incarceration. It examines themes of trace, reparation, narrative, isolation and regulation through an archival lens. This exegesis aims to create an empathetic framework responding to the colonial period 1867-1901. The research will enrich the records of the past with an interpretive understanding of the girls’ lives and identity thorough art.