wotwedid

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It’s Australia Day!! We have a photobook on display in the Two Doors Gallery in 85 George Street the ‘Rocks’, Sydney that is a commentary on Australia Day, that we created on Australia Day in 2010.

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The collaborative book, called Australian Banquet, January 25/26, 1788 (variant #5), is a double-sided broadsheet cyanotype in rice paper, 37.6x77cm. There are 7 unique state variants of this work.

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The Australian Banquet in the window @ Two Doors … Photo: Dawne Fahey

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The artists’ statement for the work is as follows:

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Across Australia on January 26, people consume food in celebration of a free and dynamic Australian culture. This work comments on the ‘turning of the page’ in Australian history that Australia Day represents. One day — January 25th 1788, Indigenous people feasted on a diverse banquet of bush tucker (as they had for thousands of years). The next day —a new paradigm arrived with the table setting of the First Fleet. Australia Day importantly is a time to re-examine the status of the Indigenous perspective and their knowing of land, culture and history and how it underpins all that is celebrated in the diversity and identity of post-colonial Australia.

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How the work is to be viewed/read

1.        At a tabletop setting view and contemplate the 25th of January side of the broadsheet.

January 25, 1788

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2.        Then, pickup the broadsheet and turn it over as if reading a book – Contemplate.

January 26, 1788

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3.        Finally hold the broadsheet up to a light thus enabling the interrelationship between the two
images to be considered.   (Image shows variant #4)

January 25+26,1788 (combined) –Today’s view

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Drop in to the gallery if you’re in Sydney.

If you happen to be in ‘The Rocks’ on Monday 27th, the public holiday come along to Two Doors and see Picturing the Orchestral Family – and a selection of photographs by Dawne Fahey – and hear the Carreon Family Quartet performance – Tango from 2 – 3. They will also perform February 2nd – same time. Performing daily @ 5.30 pm is flautist Chloe Chung – Two Doors is very lucky to have these young people from Sydney Youth Orchestras helping us celebrate this exhibition !

Have a Great Australia Day…!

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© 2014 Dawne Fahey (gallery image) and ©2012 Doug Spowart+Victoria Cooper.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/au/

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