To know and possess 2021

To know and possess 2021 by Warraba Weatherall investigates museological collections that hold Indigenous human remains and cultural materials from the artist’s Country and surrounds.

Weatherall has chosen to cast the original museum records of ten objects as individual bronze memorials. Spanning 1919 to 1979, the transcribed information includes details of the person who collected the item; where they collected it from; and the year the item entered the institutional collection. What becomes apparent is the significance of what has been omitted, including the makers, who the objects belonged to and the circumstances of the material’s removal from Country. The one exception is a shield’s entry that includes the horrific explanation ‘left by Aborigines after Myall Creek massacre — notice shot holes’.

Weatherall’s work critiques the integrity of collecting institutions that seek to ‘protect’ cultural objects by keeping them in secure environments. Institutional acts of ‘safekeeping’ separate these objects from descendants and their intended uses. The artist questions the ongoing purpose of the objects if they are no longer used for what they were made for, and points to the need for repatriation.