Join Liz Conor, Associate Professor in History at La Trobe University, as she introduces visitors to Mellor’s multidisciplinary practice that re-evaluates of iconic landscape traditions, informed by his connection to place through his Aboriginal and European heritage, and ongoing preoccupation with the Australian landscape and its cultural activities.
Danie Mellor is a contemporary artist whose multidisciplinary practice explores the intersections of contemporary and historic culture. The images in The dialectic gaze, drawn from archival sources, show pristine and altered landscapes, traditional owners and colonial settlers. These historical photographs build a snapshot of life unfolding and changing over a short period during colonial invasion in northern Queensland. The staging and posing evident in many photographs is a potent way of considering the spectacle and theatre of colonial expansion, as is the display of the pictures in this crowded hang.
About the Speaker
Liz Conor is an Associate Professor in History at La Trobe University and an ARC Future Fellow and Chief Investigator on the Graphic Encounters: Prints of Indigenous Australians project. She is the author of Skin Deep: Settler Impressions of Aboriginal Women, (UWAP, 2016) and The Spectacular Modern Woman: Feminine Visibility in the 1920s (Indiana University Press, 2004). She is former editor of the Aboriginal History Journal, a commentator across many media platforms, and co-founder (with Deborah Hart) of the Climate Guardians.
Learning Partner
