This article provides an outline of the current statue wars in Australia, England, America, New Zealand and Eastern Europe before reviewing the many of the acts of public history making these contestations have inspired among both protestors and protectors. Commencing with the unveiling of the contested statue of Captain James Cook in Sydney's Hyde Park in 1879, the authors trace the connections and contestations between past and present history making before reflecting upon the role of public historians as communities strive to develop frameworks that can foster careful conversation, consultation and collaboration processes that help to reckon with the past.
{"title":"'Setting the Scene':","authors":"Kiera Lindsey, Mariko Smith","doi":"10.5130/phrj.v28i0.7789","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5130/phrj.v28i0.7789","url":null,"abstract":"This article provides an outline of the current statue wars in Australia, England, America, New Zealand and Eastern Europe before reviewing the many of the acts of public history making these contestations have inspired among both protestors and protectors. Commencing with the unveiling of the contested statue of Captain James Cook in Sydney's Hyde Park in 1879, the authors trace the connections and contestations between past and present history making before reflecting upon the role of public historians as communities strive to develop frameworks that can foster careful conversation, consultation and collaboration processes that help to reckon with the past. ","PeriodicalId":41934,"journal":{"name":"Public History Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41786538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cook looms as large in Australian statuary as he does in nomenclature and, perhaps especially, psyche. To those who still deify him as the explorer at the vanguard of white-hatted colonial Enlightenment he remains the Neil Armstrong of his day – he who sailed where dragons be to bring English light and civility to the oldest continuous civilisation on the planet. To others of this continent, he is a sinister bogey man and a monster, the doorman who ushered in later colonisation with all its extreme violence, dispossession and ills with his east coast arrival in 1770 – in which his first act was to personally shoot two Gweagal men at Kamai.
{"title":"Assorted Bastards of Australian History","authors":"P. Daley","doi":"10.5130/phrj.v28i0.7788","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5130/phrj.v28i0.7788","url":null,"abstract":"Cook looms as large in Australian statuary as he does in nomenclature and, perhaps especially, psyche. To those who still deify him as the explorer at the vanguard of white-hatted colonial Enlightenment he remains the Neil Armstrong of his day – he who sailed where dragons be to bring English light and civility to the oldest continuous civilisation on the planet. To others of this continent, he is a sinister bogey man and a monster, the doorman who ushered in later colonisation with all its extreme violence, dispossession and ills with his east coast arrival in 1770 – in which his first act was to personally shoot two Gweagal men at Kamai.","PeriodicalId":41934,"journal":{"name":"Public History Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48682226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ultimately, dialogical memorialisation is a way to promote critical thinking and engagement with these old statues, moving away from viewing them as nineteenth-century memory culture relics and transforming them into more dynamic parts of society which more accurately reflect the many different people now residing in it.
{"title":"'Who controls the past... controls the future':","authors":"Mariko Smith","doi":"10.5130/phrj.v28i0.7787","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5130/phrj.v28i0.7787","url":null,"abstract":"Ultimately, dialogical memorialisation is a way to promote critical thinking and engagement with these old statues, moving away from viewing them as nineteenth-century memory culture relics and transforming them into more dynamic parts of society which more accurately reflect the many different people now residing in it.","PeriodicalId":41934,"journal":{"name":"Public History Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47110185","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract In recent years there has been ongoing controversy in the United States regarding monuments and place names commemorating the Confederate cause in the American Civil War. The following discussion focuses on Monument Avenue in the former Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. This was one of the most prominent locations of Confederate commemoration until statues along the avenue began to be removed during 2020. While also needing to be seen in the immediate context of events in mid-2020, these removals followed a process of investigation and consultation carried out by Richmond City Council. This produced a report which is now a useful resource for a case study investigating Monument Avenue and the broader issues its history helps to illustrate.
{"title":"Righting History","authors":"Paul Kiem","doi":"10.5130/phrj.v28i0.7786","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5130/phrj.v28i0.7786","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract \u0000In recent years there has been ongoing controversy in the United States regarding monuments and place names commemorating the Confederate cause in the American Civil War. The following discussion focuses on Monument Avenue in the former Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. This was one of the most prominent locations of Confederate commemoration until statues along the avenue began to be removed during 2020. While also needing to be seen in the immediate context of events in mid-2020, these removals followed a process of investigation and consultation carried out by Richmond City Council. This produced a report which is now a useful resource for a case study investigating Monument Avenue and the broader issues its history helps to illustrate. ","PeriodicalId":41934,"journal":{"name":"Public History Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48041721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In an era of reconciliation and truth-telling, many have questioned the symbolic power of statues. A storm of controversy across the globe galvanised an electric energy in which many statues were damaged or toppled. Statues became lightning rods for social conflict. This article explores earlier clashes over statues in Perth in the late 1970s and 1980s, revealing that while the statue of a colonial figure was untouchable despite the dark side of his history, the statue of an Aboriginal leader erected to recognise Western Australia’s First Peoples was decapitated. The article concludes with a discussion of methods for dealing with the dark history of these silent sentinels from the past.
{"title":"Dark Pasts in the Landscape:","authors":"J. Gregory","doi":"10.5130/phrj.v28i0.7504","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5130/phrj.v28i0.7504","url":null,"abstract":"In an era of reconciliation and truth-telling, many have questioned the symbolic power of statues. A storm of controversy across the globe galvanised an electric energy in which many statues were damaged or toppled. Statues became lightning rods for social conflict. This article explores earlier clashes over statues in Perth in the late 1970s and 1980s, revealing that while the statue of a colonial figure was untouchable despite the dark side of his history, the statue of an Aboriginal leader erected to recognise Western Australia’s First Peoples was decapitated. The article concludes with a discussion of methods for dealing with the dark history of these silent sentinels from the past.","PeriodicalId":41934,"journal":{"name":"Public History Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44882865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this article I draw upon a definition of ‘dialogical memorial’ offered by Brad West to offer an experimental artist's brief that outlines the various ways that a contemporary monument to the colonial artist, Adelaide Eliza Scott Ironside (1831-1867), could ‘talk back’ to the nineteenth-century statues of her contemporaries, and ‘converse’ with more recent acts of history making. In contrast to the familiar figure of the individual hero, which we associate with the statuary of her age, I suggest a group monument that acknowledges the intimate intergenerational female network which shaped Aesi's life and also ‘re-presents’ – a term coined by the historian Greg Dening – several native born and convict women from the Georgian, Regency and Victorian eras who influenced her life. Instead of elevating Aesi upon a plinth, I recommend grounding this group monument on Gadigal country and planting around it many of the Australian Wildflowers she painted in ways that draw attention to the millennia-old Indigenous uses of the same plants. And finally, by situating Aesi’s monument in the Outer Domain (behind the New South Wales Art Gallery in Sydney’s Botanic Gardens and to the east of the Yurong Pennisula, near Woolloomooloo Bay), in an area where she once boldly assumed centre stage before a large male audience in a flamboyant moment of her own theatrical history-making, I argue that this memorial will have the capcity to speak for itself in ways that challenge the underepresentation of colonial women in Sydney's statuary, abd, as West suggests, do much to ‘alter the stage on which Sydney's colonial history 'is narrated and performed’. [i] Greg Dening, Performances, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1992, p37.
在这篇文章中,我引用了Brad West提出的“对话纪念碑”的定义,提供了一份实验艺术家的简报,概述了殖民艺术家Adelaide Eliza Scott Ironside(1831-1867)的当代纪念碑可以“对话”同时代人的十九世纪雕像,并与最近的历史创造行为“对话”的各种方式。与我们所熟悉的个人英雄形象(我们将其与她那个时代的雕像联系在一起)形成对比的是,我建议建立一座集体纪念碑,承认塑造伊西生活的亲密代际女性网络,并“重新呈现”——历史学家格雷格·德宁创造的一个术语——来自格鲁吉亚的几位土生土长的女性,摄政时期和维多利亚时代影响了她的生活。与其把Aesi抬到基座上,我建议把这座集体纪念碑建在Gadigal国家,并在周围种植她画的许多澳大利亚野花,以引起人们对数千年来土著人使用相同植物的关注。最后,通过将伊西的纪念碑安置在外域(在悉尼植物园的新南威尔士美术馆后面,在Wooloomooloo湾附近的Yurong Pennisula以东),在她自己创造戏剧历史的辉煌时刻,她曾大胆地在一大群男性观众面前登上舞台中央,我认为,这座纪念碑将有能力以挑战悉尼雕像中殖民地女性形象不足的方式为自己说话,正如韦斯特所说,abd在很大程度上改变了“讲述和表演悉尼殖民历史的舞台”。格雷格·德宁,《表演》,墨尔本大学出版社,墨尔本,1992年,第37页。
{"title":"'Remember Aesi':","authors":"Kiera Lindsey","doi":"10.5130/phrj.v28i0.7760","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5130/phrj.v28i0.7760","url":null,"abstract":"In this article I draw upon a definition of ‘dialogical memorial’ offered by Brad West to offer an experimental artist's brief that outlines the various ways that a contemporary monument to the colonial artist, Adelaide Eliza Scott Ironside (1831-1867), could ‘talk back’ to the nineteenth-century statues of her contemporaries, and ‘converse’ with more recent acts of history making. In contrast to the familiar figure of the individual hero, which we associate with the statuary of her age, I suggest a group monument that acknowledges the intimate intergenerational female network which shaped Aesi's life and also ‘re-presents’ – a term coined by the historian Greg Dening – several native born and convict women from the Georgian, Regency and Victorian eras who influenced her life. Instead of elevating Aesi upon a plinth, I recommend grounding this group monument on Gadigal country and planting around it many of the Australian Wildflowers she painted in ways that draw attention to the millennia-old Indigenous uses of the same plants. And finally, by situating Aesi’s monument in the Outer Domain (behind the New South Wales Art Gallery in Sydney’s Botanic Gardens and to the east of the Yurong Pennisula, near Woolloomooloo Bay), in an area where she once boldly assumed centre stage before a large male audience in a flamboyant moment of her own theatrical history-making, I argue that this memorial will have the capcity to speak for itself in ways that challenge the underepresentation of colonial women in Sydney's statuary, abd, as West suggests, do much to ‘alter the stage on which Sydney's colonial history 'is narrated and performed’. \u0000 \u0000[i] Greg Dening, Performances, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1992, p37.","PeriodicalId":41934,"journal":{"name":"Public History Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42052344","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Understanding History’s history requires reading and analysing the texts it has produced across time, and the diverse historians who made them. In settler-colonial societies like Australia, understanding the power and process of that curation is especially urgent. This discussion briefly explores aspects of the recent ‘statue wars’ in Australian history and argues that the one constant across these many understandings of Australia over time, is this: History curates the past.
{"title":"Unfinished Business:","authors":"A. Clark","doi":"10.5130/phrj.v28i0.7753","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5130/phrj.v28i0.7753","url":null,"abstract":"Understanding History’s history requires reading and analysing the texts it has produced across time, and the diverse historians who made them. In settler-colonial societies like Australia, understanding the power and process of that curation is especially urgent. This discussion briefly explores aspects of the recent ‘statue wars’ in Australian history and argues that the one constant across these many understandings of Australia over time, is this: History curates the past.","PeriodicalId":41934,"journal":{"name":"Public History Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43009383","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Can we engage in the discussion around colonial monuments if we not are prepared to engage in potentially uncomfortable conversations about our shared history? This commentary asks this and questions why we velementally defend colonial monuments? Is it about history or something else?
{"title":"'A Matter of History':","authors":"Nathan Sentance","doi":"10.5130/phrj.v28i0.7747","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5130/phrj.v28i0.7747","url":null,"abstract":"Can we engage in the discussion around colonial monuments if we not are prepared to engage in potentially uncomfortable conversations about our shared history? This commentary asks this and questions why we velementally defend colonial monuments? Is it about history or something else?","PeriodicalId":41934,"journal":{"name":"Public History Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44580324","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper considers the fall of the statue of Edward Colston in long historical perspective and reflects on the place of history, memory and ‘heritage’ within this. The statue has its own long history of protest and challenge, and this paper makes the case for telling the whole history around both its erection and rejection in Bristol.
{"title":"Off The Pedestal:","authors":"Jessica Moody","doi":"10.5130/phrj.v28i0.7776","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5130/phrj.v28i0.7776","url":null,"abstract":"This paper considers the fall of the statue of Edward Colston in long historical perspective and reflects on the place of history, memory and ‘heritage’ within this. The statue has its own long history of protest and challenge, and this paper makes the case for telling the whole history around both its erection and rejection in Bristol.","PeriodicalId":41934,"journal":{"name":"Public History Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44652385","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This contribution considers the current debates about the place of monuments, such as the statue of Captain Cook in Hyde Park, which reached a recent high point during the Black Lives Matter protests across Australia in mid 2020. While removing contentious statues from public view may address concerns about their unwanted presence, we must ensure that the contested history they embody is not also erased from society’s memory. We need to develop an acceptable framework for dealing with such monuments within their historical context. Ultimately, there is no single answer to the question: should the vestiges of flawed historical narratives stay or go? It depends on the circumstances of each case. But some things are clear. There is a need for Australia to redress historical and current wrongs against First Nations people.
{"title":"Should They Stay or Should They Go?:","authors":"C. Yeats","doi":"10.5130/phrj.v28i0.7512","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5130/phrj.v28i0.7512","url":null,"abstract":"This contribution considers the current debates about the place of monuments, such as the statue of Captain Cook in Hyde Park, which reached a recent high point during the Black Lives Matter protests across Australia in mid 2020. While removing contentious statues from public view may address concerns about their unwanted presence, we must ensure that the contested history they embody is not also erased from society’s memory. We need to develop an acceptable framework for dealing with such monuments within their historical context. Ultimately, there is no single answer to the question: should the vestiges of flawed historical narratives stay or go? It depends on the circumstances of each case. But some things are clear. There is a need for Australia to redress historical and current wrongs against First Nations people. \u0000 \u0000 ","PeriodicalId":41934,"journal":{"name":"Public History Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46568807","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}