Publication Details Hard cover, 260 x 200mm, 140 pages, ISBN: 978-1-925793-27-7
Author and/or Editor name/s Drew Pettifer
Author and/or Editor bio/s Dr Drew Pettifer is an artist, academic, curator and lawyer with research interests in photographic theory, queer theory, gender, power, desire, the archive and contemporary social politics. His art practice works across photography, video, printmaking, performance and installation. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in the School of Art at RMIT University where he leads the Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) Hong Kong program.
Year of publication 2020
Publisher Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, Perth
Abstract A Sorrowful Act: The Wreck of the Zeewijk derives from a broader investigation within Drew Pettifer’s work to unearth hidden queer histories through archival art practices. This publication focuses on the first recorded moment in (European) queer history in Australia: a sodomy trial following the wreck of the Dutch ship the Zeewijk in 1727 where two young men were sentenced to death by marooning. Constructed to resemble an archive or database, the publication comprises photographs, texts and documents that blur the line between Pettifer’s artworks and the material behind the research. Interspersed throughout the text are essays contextualising the project, including an essay by former High Court Justice the Hon Michael Kirby on the history of sodomy laws in Australia, an essay by Professor Dennis Altman on histories of queer persecution, and an essay by the curator of the Dutch Maritime Museum on the history of sodomy in the Dutch East India Company. A Sorrowful Act: The Wreck of the Zeewijk brings together these different elements to recontextualise this social history to help us relocate ourselves in the present.
You must be logged in to post a comment.