FULLY EXPLOITED LABOUR

KANAKAS IN QUEENSLAND:  THE MAGIC LANTERN SERIES

These works were originally presented as part of a larger exhibition titled Madame Illuminata Crack’s Phantasmagorical Invention for an Ecologically Sustainable Future, exhibited at UAM, University of Queensland to coincide with the launch of the publication ‘Fully Exploited Labour’. (Sally Butler, editor) in 2008.

These ‘magic lanterns’ were pieced together by using components from cheaply produced bed lamps manufactured in China, and feature historical images sourced from the collection at the State Library of Queensland. The historical imagery has been overlaid with images compiled from details of works produced in the style that is described as Russian Constructivism.

The images depicting the labour force of indentured workers from the South Sea Islands and other areas in the Pacific region, working on a range of plantations in Queensland were prompted by the Rudd government’s decision in 2008 to bring back workers from the Pacific to work on Australian plantations and farms. However, the topic of nineteenth century indentured labour in Queensland is a much more fraught topic, and one that has, on the whole, been largely ignored.

I have used stylistic elements and imagery from Russian Constructivism as part of my ongoing Fully Exploited Labour series for the past two decades. Sally Butler writes,“Constructivism’s challenge to conventional life considered how life was ordered by class and capital but this takes on an entirely new meaning when situated in the context of the contemporary Asia Pacific. A shift occurs where the critique of social class becomes late modernity’s critique of ‘cultural’ class.” In this work the overlay of both images suggests ideas about the ways in which the past filters into the present.  – Pat Hoffie 2009