The Silenced

Australia, 2020

Julie Gough

Single-channel video, sound, 6:18 mins.

ACMI Collection

Edited by Jemma Rae

Artwork ACMI commissions First Nations On display

Julie Gough is a Trawlwoolway artist, writer and curator who lives in Hobart, Tasmania. Gough works across many mediums including video, sound and installation. Her work interrogates colonialism and its impact on Tasmania’s First Peoples. In works such as The Silenced Gough uncovers and re-presents subsumed and often conflicting histories. These works are often deeply personal, referring to her own and her family’s experiences as Tasmanian Aboriginal people.

At least 185 Aboriginal children in Lutruwita / Van Diemen’s Land / Tasmania lived with colonists before the 1850s. The Silenced is an introduction to the task of finding these children within slim records. Reinstating them back on the Country they lived, isolated from their dead and exiled kin, amongst the colonists responsible, clearly reveals the genocidal intent of Empire.” – Julie Gough

This work contains First peoples content

Transcript

History is locked up tight here

Taken

Looking for stories

No answers here

Just secrets

Something might emerge

Surveillance

Hundreds of our children, stolen

Trespasser on my own country

I’m seeking the hidden figures of history

The cover ups and violence

It’s gone bad

The missing, the dead, the Ancestors

The waiting

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Collection

In ACMI's collection

On display until

16 February 2031

ACMI: Gallery 1

Credits

artist

Julie Gough

Duration

00:06:18:00

Production places
Australia
Production dates
2020

Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

Z000184

Subject category

Digital Art

Curatorial section

The Story of the Moving Image → Moving Australia → MA-08. How We Tell Our Stories → MA-08-AV01

Sound/audio

Sound

Colour

Colour

Object Types

Artwork

Moving image file/Digital

Materials

Single-channel video, HDMI 4k video projection, 16:9, colour, sound, 6:18 min

Collected

28194 times

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.

Cite this work on Wikipedia

If you would like to cite this item, please use the following template: {{cite web |url=https://acmi.net.au/works/118032--the-silenced/ |title=The Silenced |author=Australian Centre for the Moving Image |access-date=25 April 2024 |publisher=Australian Centre for the Moving Image}}