Introduction

• Main Authors: Carlson, Bronwyn, Farrelly, Terri
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: tlingit; Alaska
• Online Access: https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/publications/842a9466-9d31-4b18-8f22-f6e2a37e1441; https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28609-4_1; http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85172142911&partnerID=8YFLogxK

On the front cover of this book there is a striking image of an art installation by Nicholas Galanin (Yéil Ya-Tseen), a Tlingit/Unangax̂ multi-disciplinary artist and musician from Alaska, titled Shadow on the Land, an Excavation and Bush Burial, 2020. The work had been commissioned for the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, 2020, and was installed on Cockatoo Island, a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in what is known today as Sydney Harbour. The installation essentially consisted of a grave for a famous statue of Captain James Cook, located in Hyde Park, Warrane (Sydney). The Cook statue consists of a bronze figure perched high on a stone pedestal, arm raised theatrically to the sky, with a large inscription below declaring, “DISCOVERED THIS TERRITORY 1770”. The ‘grave’ consists of an excavation into the earth, in the style of an archaeological dig, cut in the unmistakable shape the actual Hyde Park statue would cast—as we have previously written—“the embodiment of the shadow of capitalism, environmental degradation and destruction that colonisation and all of its consequences continue to cast on Indigenous lands” (Carlson & Farrelly, 2023, p. 63). The dig is surrounded by yellow fencing and archaeological tools—a reference to how colonial commemorations such as the Hyde Park Cook statue are protected. The staging of an archaeological dig is “used to contradict the definition of ‘discovery’ that the Hyde Park statue falsely claims. … Digging into the soil exposes evidence of the past, a long-storied past, and Earth’s oldest civilisation” (Carlson & Farrelly, 2023, pp. 63–64).