Dhuluny: the war that never ended

Bathurst Regional Art Gallery’s current exhibition Dhuluny: the war that never ended is an invitation to listen, to converse, and to conceive as a community “what now?” Dhuluny, curated by Wiradyuri / Kamilaroi artist Jonathan Jones and Wirribee Aunty Leanna Carr, is a considered commemoration of the 200 years since the declaration of martial law in Bathurst.

The exhibition interweaves the works of contemporary Wiradyuri artists, their predecessors and ancestors, with settler pastoral works to shape the experiences incited by the declaration of martial law on 14 August 1824. Dhuluny, meaning “truth” and “that which is direct,” recounts the frontier violence that ensued following the declaration and the systematic colonial killing of Wiradyuri people to restore the region to a state of “tranquillity.”

The knowledge of this violent history has been dormant for some, but weighs heavily for others, with deep and lasting impacts on the larger First Nations community. While the frontier violence was incited 200 years ago, its legacy is described by Dinawan Uncle Bill Allen as “the war that never ended.” While the historical violence bleeds into the present, the curation of the exhibition elects to disseminate these narratives in a soft, reflexive way. The exhibition is held by smooth lighting, bathing the artworks in a warm even glow, fostering a space of reception and introspection. The hanging of the works across the six partitioned sections is spacious, but not sparse, inviting a moment of pause between each. These spaces emulate chapters in history, some readily available, and others cast aside for generations.

Dhuluny is anchored by a selection of settler pastoral depictions of Bathurst and segments of large-scale wall markings using local natural pigments from Country. Paintings and prints by significant English colonial artists Augustus Earle and John William Lewin provide a settler context, one of a predominantly unoccupied and fertile land emphasising Wiradyuri’s lush green plains. The dominant settler voice has finally been quietened, now outnumbered and dispersed within the framing of works by First Nations artists.

Karla Dickens’ photographic series Looking at you I, II, III, V, VI, VII, VIII, XI, 2017, provide a bold introduction to the exhibition. Stacked four by two, the self-portraits stoically traverse the wall. In each portrait, Dickens adorns a black pillowcase as a spit hood embellished with kitsch imagery including the Southern Cross and da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. The artwork responds to the impacts of historical violence within the present, especially the treatment of First Nations people within the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre on Larrakia Country in the Northern Territory. Spit hoods have commonly been used on young people within the Detention Centre, until as recently as 2022. These hoods, akin to masks, strip an individual of their identity, and consequently absolve the perpetrators of individual guilt. Dickens’ work at the entrance to the exhibition is a stark reminder that these acts of violence are not contained within the comfort of the past but infiltrate the treatment and policies of the present.

Sections of the gallery’s white walls have been cloaked by textural diagonal markings in charcoal, and yellow and white ochre. These markings are both an intervention into the Western white gallery space and an instrument to carry the Country that exists beyond the building within. Country is defiantly manifest within the exhibition, and the presence of these materials signifies their continual importance to Wiradyuri ceremony, healing, protection, and sorry business.

The narrative of the frontier violence in Bathurst has long been dominated by men on both Wiradyuri and settler sides. The exhibition includes works by significant Wiradyuri male artists including paintings by H.J. (Harry) Wedge such as Returning Stolen Goods, 1994; Kevin Gilbert’s black and white linocuts including Massacre Mountain, 1965; and Michael Riley’s photographic work Untitled, 1998, from the series flyblown. Dhuluny, however, centres the forgotten or overlooked histories of women, reflected in all the contemporary artworks made by Wiradyuri women including Wirribee Aunty Leanna Carr, Lorraine Connelly-Northey, Lucy Williams-Connelly, Karla Dickens, and Jazz Money.

Dhuluny expresses the importance of the stories of Wiradyuri women to be told, in order to not succumb to a dormant history. The emphasis on this perspective reflects the imperative of women within Wiradyuri culture to hold and carry knowledge for future generations. This generational connection is tied between Lorraine Connelly-Northey’s prickly interpretation of possum cloaks, using rusted and brown found metals in Possum-skin cloaks: Waradgrie Winnowers, 2024, and her mother Lucy Williams-Connelly’s crocheted red, black, and yellow series of hanging Dillybags, 2024.

Contemporary artist and poet Jazz Money’s artwork remains of context, 2024, interrogates the 1824 declaration of martial law that incited the frontier violence and caused enduring destruction. The proclamation was initially printed as a small classified in the newspaper, now extrapolated by Money to a large-scale calico sheet. Cast across four separate panels, Money pulls poems from the original text and encourages the viewer to read between the lines, exposing this colonial tool of destruction.

Wirribee Aunty Leanna Carr’s work Bangayadilinya, 2024, akin to remains of context, is referential to historical archival material. Her commissioned photographic series incorporates the alleged desk of Governor Lachlan Macquarie, (who was recalled back to Scotland in 1821), he used the desk to sign deeds and legal documentation. The room containing it is coated with yellow ochre. The desk itself, borrowed from Bathurst Historical Society’s collection, is present, surrounded by photographic prints, it poses an invitation to witness a symbolic item that changed the course of a whole people. The desk, foregrounded in each of the photographs, has been placed on significant sites on Wiradyuri land, from sites of massacre to ceremony, including the ceremonial ground of Wahluu | Mt Panorama and Bathurst Court House.

The only disruption to the exhibition is contained within the foyer of the Gallery and Bathurst Library, encasing Jamie-lea Trindall’s black and gold ceramic forms budhangbu gidharrabu (blak gold), 2024, including coolamons. Within this in-between space the works can potentially be missed or feel disconnected from the remainder of the show, so keen observance is encouraged.

Dhuluny: the war that never ended is a call for a response. The exhibition sensitively offers the living histories of the devastation incited by the declaration of martial law 200 years ago. It probes its audience to acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded and open themselves up to participate in restorative processes. Dhuluny is instigative of one of many conversations required regarding what is done with the knowledge of this history, its ongoing impacts in the present, and what is required by First Nations people and settlers to move forward collectively.

This review was originally published in Artist Profile, issue 68

Images courtesy of the artists, Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, NSW, Murray Art Museum, NSW, The Commerical, Sydney, Wiradyuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation, and Station Gallery, Sydney

EXHIBITION
Dhuluny: the war that never ended
6 July – 8 September 2024
Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, NSW