The Oyster Fishermen #13 2011

Across her career, Fiona Foley records the history of Australia from a Badtjala perspective. This series continues her work applying post-colonial and decolonising ideologies to historical narratives. In the photographs, the artist places herself as the central female character within a disturbing narrative. The series begins with a self-portrait: Foley in a blue dress, holding out a nautilus shell. (The Badtjala people are known as people of the nautilus shell.) Three young white men – the oyster fishermen – are camped nearby. After a fleeting series of close encounters, we witness the fatal crime: the young men capture the woman, who is bound, brutalised and sexualised before being cast into the sea over the oyster-rich rocks that first lured the men. Foley’s art practice balances seductive aesthetics and potent politics, while barely veiling her palpable rage at the history of the treatment of Aboriginal people.