Lane art unpacking colonial ideas

COLONIALISM is explored in the latest public installation by artist Bratdevi.

The former journalist’s exhibition of collage, mixed media pieces, and writing, Stuck in the Colony, is up at Unicorn Lane public gallery until 16 January, spotlighting the British empire and its influence.

“In Australia, the number of immigrants coming from former British colonies is increasing,” she said.

“When Hong Kong was handed back, the UK government granted opportunities for rights to residency and Australia followed suit.

“As migrants, there would be many deja vu or blind spot moments since we who have reclaimed our lands and institutional structures as our own again, yet we are very familiar with the colonising cultural ways to find comfort or superior aesthetic values as they were once imposed upon us.

“However, the Indigenous peoples in this wide country, whose lands will always stay settled, may never make a rebellion or ‘fighting from under’ possible, who have not had that independence to reclaim and are living mostly as urban dwellers.”

Bratdevi said she can celebrate the remains of the colony in Australia, while recognising that the country remains one, with an English monarch.

The Unicorn Lane gallery is an ideal place to explore these ideas from Bratdevi’s perspective, as the location is where a lot of gold brokerage was done in the mid-to-late 19th century.

“The end of the gold mine from Yarrowee River stopped at Her Majesty’s, and behind that was the little lane between the Unicorn Hotel and the bank.

“It used to be the Bank of London, and 95 per cent of the gold, when it was first discovered in Ballarat, was sent back to the UK,” she said.