Dreaming of Destruction: From Direct Action to Speculative Iconoclasm in Aboriginal Protest, Australia, 1970 to 2021

• Main Author: Orr, Nikolas
• Other Authors: The University of Newcastle. College of Human & Social Futures, Newcastle Law School
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 2023
• Subjects: iconoclasm; Aboriginal; Australia; redress; First Nations
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1483294

Despite its coinage in South African university policy, visual redress can be productively applied to recent responses by Australian governments to contested monuments. When framed by theories of the destruction of art, visual redress can be thought of as a type of iconoclasm from above, a form of self-critique popular among present-day settler-colonial institutions globally. This chapter insists, however, that these categories are of limited use in understanding the practice of monument destruction and modification in Australia, the origins and development of which lie with First Nations. The chapter analyses intelligence records, works of visual art, documentary film and newspaper archives to chart a transition in Aboriginal protest from direct action on colonial monuments in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s to the artistically mediated approaches of filmmakers and visual artists of more recent times. In doing so, the chapter proposes speculative iconoclasm as a concept key to understanding the shift in Aboriginal resistance from the overtly destructive to subtle, creative approaches. Ultimately, it is argued that the channelling of iconoclastic actions into creative works by Aboriginal activists and the state's administration of dissent as visual redress are symptoms of a society that disproportionately punishes lawbreaking by Indigenous peoples.