When Silence Falls

“When Silence Falls” is the second of the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ (AGNSW) Contemporary Collection Projects, a series aimed at highlighting the institution’s own holdings and revealing new connections—or, in their words, “sightlines”—between the artworks. The series launched in 2015 with the exhibition “See You at the Barricades,” which examined the politics of protest through an exploration of the “dissident aesthetic.” Continuing this thread, “When Silence Falls” also addresses conflict and injustice by taking a contemplative approach to the notion of trauma, which in turn allows for a broad consideration of the human condition.

Curated by Cara Pinchbeck, AGNSW curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, the exhibition addresses universal experiences of trauma, taking the work of contemporary Indigenous Australian artists as its central focus. Its discussion of events that have been historically overlooked—such as massacres and cultural displacement—allows for a deeper understanding of the largely dismissed traumas of Aboriginal Australia.

Most of the artworks are drawn from the Gallery’s own collection, supplemented by others loaned from prominent local private collections. Each exhibition in the Contemporary Collection Projects also includes the unveiling of a new commission. In the case of “When Silence Falls,” it is Judy Watson’s a picnic with the natives – the gulf (2015), the title of which recalls a disturbing, historically documented euphemism used by European colonialists to reference their massacring of Indigenous Australians. On Watson’s ethereally stained canvas is painted the map created by British cartographer Matthew Flinders as he navigated and named the region around northern Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria in the early 1800s. Target-like marks are scattered across the land, indicating the brutally random occurrences of violence against the native community that had taken place on this “new frontier.” This work is part of Watson’s larger ongoing series, “the names of places,” comprised of canvases mapping largely unrecorded massacres gathered from individual people’s memories and oral histories. At the exhibition, the names of these massacres scroll endlessly on a small screen in the corner of the gallery, its modest presentation belying the impact of the subject matter.

“When Silence Falls” incorporates painting, sculpture, video and installation works spread across four rooms that are respectively titled: “…country remains,” “…moments linger,” “…traces remind” and “…hearts ache.” These segments operate like micro-exhibitions, or chapters, which draw out connections between particular groups of works more explicitly than would a singular exhibition. The impact of trauma within Australia is reflected in the first room, while the subsequent sections explore the issue further, until in the final room we are confronted with ghosts of the past.

The opening room, “…country remains,” looks at how European colonialists silenced any dialogue concerning the massacres of Aboriginal people, setting the stage for the rest of the exhibition. Watson and fellow artist Daniel Boyd use their respective family histories as entry points into discussions on displacement, while Ben Quilty’s Fairy Bower Rorschach (2012) acknowledges a site whose dark past, allegedly as a site of Aboriginal massacres during the 19th century, has been largely ignored due to the lack of records and legitimacy afforded to oral histories. Connection with indigenous land and history is also vital to Hossein Valamanesh as an immigrant to Australia from Iran, and his work Longing Belonging (1997) reflects the transformative experience of his early years in his new country. It can be said that the section “…country remains” speaks to all Australians, whether they are Indigenous, non-Indigenous, Australian-born or an immigrant.