Forgiveness of Land, 2012

from the series We Bury Our Own
c-type print on Fuji Pearl Metallic Paper
100 x 100 cm
edition AP2 of 10 + 2AP
SOLD OUT

EXHIBITED
Christian Thompson: We Bury Our Own, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, 29 May – 23 June 2012
Christian Thompson: We Bury Our Own, Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney, 5 July – 4 August 2012
Christian Thompson: We Bury Our Own, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK, 26 June 2012 – 6 January 2013
Ritual Intimacy, UNSW Galleries, Sydney, 4 May – 14 July 2018

COLLECTIONS
Indigenous Law Centre – UNSW Sydney
Art Gallery of West Australia
Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK

Forgiveness of Land is part of the series We Bury Our Own, a spiritual repatriation of archival materials in the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford University. Historically, Indigenous Australian cultural material was stolen and sent to Great Britain for study and to preserve what was perceived to be a “dying culture.” Photographs of Indigenous Australian people were also taken to racially categorise and classify. As one of the first two Indigenous Australians to study at Oxford, Christian Thompson created a ceremony to connect with these objects while pursuing his doctorate there. In using photography to record his ceremony, he reclaims these objects as belonging to Indigenous Australian people and performs a contemporary, transatlantic “burial” of them.