I acknowledge the Gadigal and Bidjigal peoples on whose land we meet today

and pay my respect to their Elders, past, present and emerging.

Please be advised that this lecture contain images of deceased persons

La Perouse and the Sydney Imagination

Shellwork and other items for sale at the Loop, 1950s. Photograph by JH Bell, Powerhouse Museum

Maria Nugent, 2005, Botany Bay: Where Histories Meet, Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin Maria Nugent, La Perouse: The Place, The People and the Sea, 1988, Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press Peter McKenzie, and Ann Stephen, 1987, 'La Perouse: An Urban Aboriginal Community', in Sydney: City of Suburbs, ed. Max Kelly, Kensington: New South Wales University Press Shannon Foster; AHT267 Week 11: https://nas.edu.au/online-student-learning-portal/bachelor-of-fine-art/year-2-semester-1/aht267-contemporary-australian-indigenous-art/week-11/

https://youtu.be/Rwa1qct0F_w

This is our Country: View from the Shore (ABC)

Randall Sinnamon’s portrait of Uncle Laddie Timbery, finalist in 2019 Moran Prize.

Uncle Laddie Timbery (12th Feb 1941 – 23rd July 2019)

Native Carvings, La Perouse [whale], c. 1891, William Dugald Campbell, Pencil, PXD 223/5, SLNSW

La Perouse by morning

Captain Cook’s Landing at Botany AD 1770. Supplement presented gratis with Christmas number of the Town & country journal, Decr. 21st, 1872. National Library of Australia. http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-135775020/view

Sketch of Sydney Cove, Port Jackson in the County of Cumberland, after a drawing by Francis Fowkes in 1788, 1789, National Library of Australia, Canberra, Australia

Above: detail of plate from Views of Australasia: Albums of Prints from Various Sources (c.1779-1848). Right: Thomas Medland, after Robert Clevley, Natives of Botany Bay (1789), plate 6 in Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay.

[Aboriginal people with] Mrs Long and Mrs Cook at La Perouse. Christmas 1903. From Series 03 Box 6: Australian Indigenous Ministries pictorial material : various historical photographs, ca. 1860-1909. State Library NSW

Albert James Perier, 1900-1910, Group portrait of Aboriginals from La Perouse and elsewhere, 1 glass photonegative, State Library NSW

‘…the creation of the two reserves within a few years of each other resulted in an odd, albeit unplanned, arrangement whereby Aboriginal people occupied and even possessed one headland while the memory of an historical figure and an historical event implicitly associated with the dispossession of Aborigines imbued the other’ – Maria Nugent, 2005, Botany Bay: Where Histories Meet. Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin. Pg. 64

Aboriginal hut, La Perouse, [ca. 1910], 9.30 x 11.55 cm, black cardboard album page cut-out 10.40 x 12.10 cm - gelatin silver, State Library NSW

Leisure and Exoticism: La Perouse and the Colonial Imagination

The Tram Loop at La Perouse (c.1920s), La Perouse Museum

Above: La Perouse Shellworker Jane Simms, 1929, United Aborigines Messenger. Top R: Snake Pit La Perouse. Bottom R; Unknown artist, Hear shaped box, c. 1940s, assorted shells, fabric, cardboard, 14 x 14 x 7cms. AGNSW

Photographs of the Simms family of La Perouse, ca. 1900-ca. 1950, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

Left: Carter, Jeff, Timbery family standing outside their boomerang shop at the Joe Timbery Museum, La Perouse, New South Wales (1963); black and white photograph, 41.9 x 26 cm., on sheet 48.4 x 33 cm.

Presumed oldest surviving shellwork object: Shellwork slipper, maker unknown, 1918, MAAS

Margaret Preston, 1929, N.S.W. Everlasting Flowers, oil on canvas, 46 x 46cm, private collection (?)

Unknown photographer, 1895, Emma, Queen of La Perouse, Aboriginal Shellwork State Library NSW

“IT ALWAYS COMES BACK : ANCIENT AUSTRALIAN CRAFT OF BOOMERANG MAKING UNFOLDED BY ABORIGINALS AT LA PEROUSE : SYDNEY”, 1934, Cinesound newsreel

‘spurious boomerangs are still made for tourists, and others only slightly less spurious for innocents who visit the encampment at La Perouse, but most of these artefacts are so inferior that even tourists pass them by’ - Stanner, W. 1939. The Aborigines. In: Kevin, J. (ed.) Some Australians Take Stock. London: Longmands, Green & Co. 1979: 2-3.

Boomerang from La Perouse, artist unknown, Made in La Perouse Aboriginal Reserve, 1932-1940. Collection of Power House Museum, Sydney

La Perouse: Locus of Action and Activism

La Perouse Aborigines' Mission: music at the annual outdoor rally of the United Aborigines' Mission 26 January 1931 (SMH)

Above: The AAPA Manifesto. Right above: Frederick Maynard APA President. Image: John Maynard. Right Below: Jack Patten, NMA

L to R: Russell Clarke, Aboriginal Day of Mourning, 26 January 1938, William Ferguson, Jack Kinchela, Isaac Ingram, Doris Williams, Esther Ingram, Arthur Williams, Phillip Ingram, Louisa Agnes Ingram OAM holding daughter Olive Ingram, Jack Patten. unknown (SLNSW)

Yarra Bay House, La Perouse

Above Right: Badge - White Australia has a Black History, Australia, 1988, Museums Victoria Below: Poster 'The Australian Bicentenary 1788-1988 - The Celebration of a Nation‘, 1988, National Museum of Australia

Peter Mckenzie, Protest march against First Fleet re-enactment at La Perouse Beach, January 1988, gelatin silver photograph, 18.6 x 28 cm, NGA

Member of the Yolngu band Yothu Yindi, Milkayngu Mununggurr, plays Didj. Survival Day concert La Perouse, Sydney. Friday 26th January, 1996. SLNSW

Peter Mckenzie, 1987, Lola Ryan and Mavis Longbottom demonstrating the art of shellwork‘ gelatin silver photograph, 27.9 x 18.6, NGA.

La Perouse’s Cultural Icons

Above: Mavis Longbottom & Lola Ryan, 1986, ‘Sydney Harbour Bridge’, Casula Powerhouse

Esme Timbery, 2008, Shellworked slippers (fullwork + detail), Shell, glitter, fabric, cardboard and glue, size variable. MCA.

Portrait of Esme Timbery, AGNSW

Esme Timbery and Jonathan Jones, 2015, Shell wall 2015, installed Barangaroo and Curated by Emily McDaniel.

Blak Douglas, 2019, White shells, black heart, synthetic polymer paint and shells on canvas, 195 x 195 cm, Archibald Prize Finalist 2019

Peter Yanada McKenzie, "La Per.! La Per.! La Per.!", from the series It's a man's game (1991), gelatin silver photograph, 30.2 x 46 cm image; 40.6 x 50.8 cm sheet