Re-Membering is the twelfth and final print in my artist's book. I wanted to end my book on a somewhat hopeful note, with a view to a future that might be more just and equitable for everyone. The title Re-Membering carries multiple meanings: the importance to remember the past through subaltern voices and to bring people in from the margins, allowing them to again become members of society in their land.
The figures in this print come together as a community. Settler women stand next to indigenous women; settler children stand next to indigenous children; a politician stands next to an indigenous man. I re-etched all the figures representing the settler society for this print, to scale them down to the same size as the figures representing indigenous people. With the change in scale, I wanted to portray the importance of an equal society, where people see each other as equals, where political decisions are community based and not top-down. I added a printing plate with settler children, since children shape the future; what we teach children in schools about history and how to interact with others who are different from us matters.
One of the most interesting texts that I feel rounds off the book really beautifully is the text by former Anglican missionary Stephen Kidd. He came to Makthlawaya, the Anglican mission station Wilfrid Barbrooke Grubb founded, 95 years after Grubb. Kidd writes: “As my Christian faith withered away, I gradually developed a different perspective on Enxet culture and social life and my personal mission changed from one of transformation to a desire to share in the life of the Enxet. Rather than seeking to eradicate Enxet social practices I became increasingly committed to trying to understand – and experience – them.”
We often think of colonization as a process of history in the past, but the impacts of colonization continue to pervade everything in our lives today: social structures and systems, our perception of land and property, the content we are taught in schools, the way we think about, interact with, and treat others on whose land we now live, whose artefacts we store, who work for us, and whose experiences are not taught in schools. This artist book invites to question our biases, our perceptions, and our understanding of history, and challenges us to decolonize our thinking.
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