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Gallipoli to Coniston - Remembering Frontiers - Seminar and Art Exhibition - Sydney

A still from the documentary CONISTON - Screened on ABC TV early 2013
Gallipoli to Coniston
Remembering Frontiers
Thursday 28th and Friday 29th August 2014

Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Conference Room

Level 3, Mary Ann House,
645 Harris Street
University Technology Sydney
Opening Session 9.30am Thursday 28th August 2014

Acknowledgement of Country - Pastor Ray Minniecon (Kinchela Boys Home Committee)

Sessions include:

Politics of commemorations with Prof. Gary Foley (University of Melbourne) and Francis Jupurrulla Kelly (Director of 'Coniston' documentary, Chair of Pintubi Anrnatjere Warlpiri Media Yuendumu, NT).

Indians, Australians and 'colonial' armies with Sekhar Bandyopadhyay (Vic Utli, NZ), Devleena Ghosh (UTS) and Sikh community representatives

ANZAC commemoration with Andrew Jakubowicz + Ahrnet lcduygu (UTS), Meredith Walker (Heritage activist), Turkish community representatives

Frontiers, Nationalism and Resistance with Robyne Bancroft (Indigenous Archaeological Association, Bundjalung/Thungatti nation) and Ray Kerkhove (Chair of Q-Earth, Historian)

Women and war with Heather Goodall (UTS), Meredith Burgmann (Women Against Rape in War) and Lucy Fiske (UTS).

Exhibiting Artists: Black Douglas (Dhungatti artist) Amarla Groom (Wiradjuru artist) Vedat Acikalin (Turkish photo-journalist)

For full program details or for more information, please contact Heather.Goodall@uts.edu.au

Gallipoli to Coniston
Remembering Frontiers
Seminar and Art Exhibition
8-29 August 2014
University of Technology Sydney (UTS)

By Ray Jackson

Thanks to the input of some feisty men and women the seminar and art exhibition shown below has been pulled together for a fascinating two days of looking at the subject of war and who fought in those wars, and including the why. Very importantly several sessions will be dedicated to the frontier wars in the 'unsettling' of the invasion of the traditional nations of this country, Australia.

Also seriously considered will be those who, very much for their own reasons, went to fight on behalf of either the interests of the british crown or for usa hegemony. from the boer war to Afghanistan and possibly Iraq, again, or even on to Iran.

The input of Turkish and Indian armed forces, including women, is also given as a matter of importance. as will the horrors of war that were visited upon the women who became the victims of those wars and massacres.

To my mind, Gallipoli in Turkey to Coniston in the Northern Territory, among other sites remembered, is a good fit. The first, Gallipoli, was nothing but a butchery and a loss and a retreat. however noble it may be depicted today as some type of jingoistic patriotic amnesia as being presented as the birth of the Australian (white) nation. I see no glory here despite all the politicians brain-washing.

Coniston, the alleged final massacre of Aborigines in 1928, was also a butchery. But this was a butchery of, mainly, Aboriginal women and children. The loss was ours but we did not retreat. The traditional NT mobs survived despite the white man's theft, their guns and their courts. It is many years since I have seen the documentary on the Coniston Massacre and I no longer remember whether or not it was the Francis Jupurulla Kelly one that I saw but I am eagerly looking forward to seeing it again as it will be shown during the seminar.

A good number of people have contributed to this seminar and art exhibition, myself included, and I can assure you of your time being well spent. and I know, you will learn.

for further information and the full program and/or bookings, please make contact with heather.goodall@uts.edu.au

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