Picnic at Ngannelong
(2019-2021)
Picnic at Ngannelong is a series of images created in response to the overarching Eurocentric colonial narratives prevalent in landscape photography. Through research, sites within Victoria that once held historical significance for First Nations Australians and have since been whitewashed by easily digestible colonial narratives were photographed.
By visiting and spending time in these places, the realization emerged that many of these landscapes were far more complex and stirring than the prescribed colonial histories suggested. Photographing these sites with a new perspective on their history strengthens the resolve to explore new ways of representing the landscape, making visible the layering of histories within it.
The process involved photographing the landscapes on film and physically manipulating the negatives. By layering the photographs with physical intrusions, this project challenges repetitive imaging practices that enact and embed colonial mythology and visuality within landscape photography.
The interventions made to the photographic negatives can be seen as additives and/or erasures. This layering of processes speaks to the relationship between past and present histories and stories. It provides a shift from representational photography to a phenomenological, inward-looking approach to art-making, offering a non-linear and non-didactic way of dealing with the complexities of Australian history and experience. The photographs begin to act more like symbolic representations of Australia as a place rather than a nation—a place that exists as a result of both imagination and physical presence.
Alice Duncan - Love It or Leave It at Gertrude Street Projection Festival 2021 from Alice Duncan on Vimeo.
2019, 117 x 170 cm, mounted inkjet print on Canson Rag
Edition 1 of 2 and 1AP
This work was reimagined as a video piece as part of Past, Present, Futures at the Gertrude Street Projection Festival in 2021 and the Aesop End of Season at Collingwood Yards. This work was financially supported through the City of Yarra and the Centre for Projection Art. Documentation images by Lauren Dunn.
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Edition 1 of 2 and 1AP
This work was reimagined as a video piece as part of Past, Present, Futures at the Gertrude Street Projection Festival in 2021 and the Aesop End of Season at Collingwood Yards. This work was financially supported through the City of Yarra and the Centre for Projection Art. Documentation images by Lauren Dunn.
