The image is by Tracey Moffatt and part of the “up in the sky” (1997) collection. It concerns the “stolen generations,” a time between 1910s and 1970s when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were torn from their families. It was a government sanctioned act of genocide, with ongoing profound social consequences. A friend of mine talks of keeping, to this day, cans of tinned food in their cupboards that will never been eaten to demonstrate to government agents that they will be able to take care of their families. The volume of happy family photos taken before government intervention and after which none of the children ever were able to meet again are horrific. The Australian government issued a formal “apology,” with an attendant “National Sorry Day” on May 26th every year.
But, the fact is that Christian missions were key agents in this move to “civilise” — steal — the people of this land.
Tracey Moffatt’s image expresses the colonial side of this image. Note that there are no Indigenous peoples present. Only the baby. The nuns are on the outside, looking inquisitively inside. And yet they are blurred, seeming without identity, part of a system in which particular responsibility cannot be identified. One nun looks like she is holding a cane, and instrument of discipline. They look significantly out of place in the Australian outback, but equally strangely present as though they belong, as though they have the authority to control what is happening even inside private dwellings.
The “internal” part of the image, that realm of civilisation to which the child has been “rescued,” is marked by distress in both the child and the “mother.” There are holes in the walls, speaking to cheap fabrication and degradation, the brokenness in the very system supposed to “save.” The hidden metal structure, which evokes ideas of “institutionalism,” to the left is decayed and the whole is dirty. This is juxtaposed to the world outside the window which is open and free, expansive–except for the nuns which seem to limit that space.
The graffiti on the window seems to say “fuck you,” but is obscured, reflecting a frustration, an unheard/ignore/obscured rage.
But the dominating, central, part of the image is the letter “y.” Though it is central, it seems to be submerged by the variety of the actors and motifs. These other things attempt to draw attention away from the centre. And yet the centre stands. This blood red “why” holds in the basic to the black and white reality of a moment of dynamic hate and desecration.
