Hero Walk

Adelaide Arts Festival, Australia, 1994

 

Images painted by the Galicia family from Manila were over-painted with text. Two paintings by Adelaide artist Samuel  Crosslyn: Portrait of Samuel Kandwillan, a pupil of the natives' training institution, Poonindie, South Australia (1854) featured over the Vic Richardson Gate at the Adelaide Cricket Ground and Nannultera, a young cricketer of the Natives Training Institution, Poonindie’ (1854) featured above the doorway at the Adelaide Cathedral. The image for the museum featured T.Baines and C.Humphrey killing an alligator on Horse Shoe flats (1856) by Thomas Baines.

 

The words painted over the images read: (1) “the Australian pastoral industry: sheep to the slaughter” (referring to the role of the church in the Stolen Generation); (2) “no such thing as a level playing field” (at the time John Button was referring to overseas trade as such); (3) “I croak/you croak; I stuff/you are stuffed ‘ (the environmental impact of colonialism);(4) “internationally speaking, culture is the lubricant for economic intercourse” (the role of culture in ‘soft diplomacy’).