'My work attempts to highlight the mistakes, mistranslations and loss of knowledge in the social documentation of Kaurna culture by European colonists.'
Kaurna artist James Tylor uses the historical 19th century photographic process of the Becquerel daguerreotype to create contemporary images that re-contextualise the representation of Australian society and history. Photography was historically used to document First Nations Peoples and the European colonisation of Australia.
'The Darkness of Enlightenment starts as an idea. In this case, it's the interaction between Kaurna and the colonists who had documented language on the frontier of South Australia. I'm predominantly a landscape photographer, so l use landscape to talk about that interaction, visiting places where that transaction of language happened and areas that were transmission points between the colonists and Kaurna.' – James Tylor
These 16 daguerreotypes extend James' installation of daggeureotypes in the 4th National Indigenous Art Triennial: Ceremony at the National Gallery of Australia.
Interested? James is busy making work for the show, but we're happy to send you a preview once the works are ready. Just let us know.
