ALETHEIA CASEY

Based between Australia, her homeland, and London, UK, Aletheia Casey explores Australia’s colonial past and through her photographic practice seeks to challenge Australian official historical narrative, which almost completely silenced the voices and stories of First Australians, and hid the traumas and atrocities inflicted on them. Continually questioning whether she has the right as a white Australian to talk of the pain of others, she often uses overlaying and manipulation of the negatives to express the layeredness of the landscapes, and seeks to confront this ‘deliberate misremembering’ that anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner defined as the Great Australian Silence. By acknowledging and sharing the pain suffered by the First Nations people, Casey hopes her photographs can function as a tool of healing.

The series ‘No Blood Stained the Wattle’ is composed of diptychs pairing the portrait of a person of First Australians descent with the photograph of sites where atrocities were perpetrated against First Tasmanians during the conflicts of the frontiers and the Black War. Casey painted the landscapes’ negatives with ochre, a pigment traditionally used by First Australian women in rituals, and scratched them to make visible and tangible onto the photographic surface the invisible scars left by the atrocities committed.

Hobart area, 1826. After the alleged killing of 118 colonists by Aboriginal men in the settled districts the government authorised police magistrates to treat all Aboriginal people as 'open enemies' . This is considered to be the beginning of what is known as 'The Black War.'

Hills surrounding Liffey Falls, 1827. Settlers on a reprisal raid for the murder of a stock-keeper were reported to have killed numerous Aboriginal people at Liffey Falls.

Settled Districts, Hobart area, 1828: Martial law was declared against Aboriginal clans in the Settled Districts around Hobart, and Indigenous Tasmanians are now considered 'Open enemies of the King.'

Risdon Cove Massacre, 1804. Facts about deaths at this site are highly debated. Many claim that less than three Aboriginals were killed during the conflict, while the majority of historians claim that over 30 Aboriginal people were slaughtered during the early days of colonisation.

Liffey Falls massacre site over-laid with a John Glover Painting.

North of Hobart. Site of The Black Line, 1830: As a result of the on-going conflicts between New Settlers and Indigenous Tasmanians Governor Aurthur called for every British man to form a human chain to capture and kill Aboriginal clans. 'The Black Line' was the largest force ever assembled against Aborigines anywhere in Australia. Those captured were forcibly removed to a remote island around 200km from the Tasmanian mainland called Flinders Island, where many later died from influenza.

East Coast of Tasmania, 1829/1830.

Settler Robert Ayton wrote to the colonial secretary and said: "On this occasion not less than sixteen (Aboriginal men) were massacred and gathered into heaps and buried."

Bruny Island, Tasmania. The original home of Truganini, one of the last full blooded Tasmanian Aboriginals. Truganini witnessed her mother being killed by whalers. Her fiancé was also killed while saving her from abduction, and in 1828, her two sisters were abducted and sold as slaves.

Southern Districts of Tasmania, 1816 onwards. Kidnapping of Aboriginal Children became widespread.

The deliberate removal of Indigenous children from their families to be placed into foster care, religious care and non-indigenous families continued well into the 1970s.
The survivors of this atrocity are called The Stolen Generations.

Hobart area, 1826. After the alleged killing of 118 colonists by Aboriginal men in the settled districts the government authorised police magistrates to treat all Aboriginal people as 'open enemies' . This is considered to be the beginning of what is known as 'The Black War.'

Hills surrounding Liffey Falls, 1827. Settlers on a reprisal raid for the murder of a stock-keeper were reported to have killed numerous Aboriginal people at Liffey Falls.

Settled Districts, Hobart area, 1828: Martial law was declared against Aboriginal clans in the Settled Districts around Hobart, and Indigenous Tasmanians are now considered 'Open enemies of the King.'

Risdon Cove Massacre, 1804. Facts about deaths at this site are highly debated. Many claim that less than three Aboriginals were killed during the conflict, while the majority of historians claim that over 30 Aboriginal people were slaughtered during the early days of colonisation.

Liffey Falls massacre site over-laid with a John Glover Painting.

North of Hobart. Site of The Black Line, 1830: As a result of the on-going conflicts between New Settlers and Indigenous Tasmanians Governor Aurthur called for every British man to form a human chain to capture and kill Aboriginal clans. 'The Black Line' was the largest force ever assembled against Aborigines anywhere in Australia. Those captured were forcibly removed to a remote island around 200km from the Tasmanian mainland called Flinders Island, where many later died from influenza.

North of Hobart. Site of The Black Line, 1830: As a result of the on-going conflicts between New Settlers and Indigenous Tasmanians Governor Aurthur called for every British man to form a human chain to capture and kill Aboriginal clans. 'The Black Line' was the largest force ever assembled against Aborigines anywhere in Australia. Those captured were forcibly removed to a remote island around 200km from the Tasmanian mainland called Flinders Island, where many later died from influenza.

North of Hobart. Site of The Black Line, 1830: As a result of the on-going conflicts between New Settlers and Indigenous Tasmanians Governor Aurthur called for every British man to form a human chain to capture and kill Aboriginal clans. 'The Black Line' was the largest force ever assembled against Aborigines anywhere in Australia. Those captured were forcibly removed to a remote island around 200km from the Tasmanian mainland called Flinders Island, where many later died from influenza.

Eliza is a descendant of the Palawa people with ancestors originating from Lunawanna Alonnah or what is now more commonly known as Bruny Island of the Southern tip of Tasmania. Despite the history books suggesting Aboriginal Tasmanians ‘died out’ bloodlines and spirits remain strong.

David Pross is Eliza Pross's cousin and is from the same bloodline as Truganini who is famed as being one of the last full blooded Tasmanian Aboriginals. David’s mother was Dutch and his father was an Indigenous Tasmanian.

Christine Walsh's great grandmother was an Aboriginal woman from mainland Tasmania however all birth records were burned in a fire. Christine's Aboriginal ancestry traces back to Fanny Cochrane Smith.

Peter Shine's bloodline can be traced back to Truganini.