Eurasia

"We, as First Nations Peoples, have the international right as independent Nations Peoples to assert our right of self-determination under international law."

- Nyoongar Ghurradjong Murri Ghillar, Aboriginal Sovereignty Leader

"Declare independence!

Don't let them do that to you!

Declare independence!

Don't let them do that to you!

Start your own currency!

Make your own stamp

Protect your language"

- Bjork

The Aboriginal sovereign embassy was first established in Canberra in 1972 and have since been intermittedly established in the capitals around Australia. The Brisbane embassy was forcibly evicted from Musgrave Park by police in 2012 under orders from the Brisbane City Council.  

A nation's sovereignty is defined by necessary components: autonomy, control over an area of land, a defence force, a flag, a head of state, a passport and a currency. This work uses currency as an artefact of the state, usually glanced over as a mere object of function, but when studied we see they are rich in endemic symbology: national, religious, biological. 

The landmass of eurasia is laid out here in a simplified form: each note placed in accordance with the state it was born from. We can trace the euro-asia contour of facial features of the figures along the bottom row; kings, the finest men of the land; we can see the beauty of the nation's history; thousands of years of development of the arts distilled into select examples of architecture, technology; even the visual style of the abstract patterning of the borders. 

The Aboriginal man stands entrapped by a foreign symbology, dressed in foreign dress; he has not his own script on the bill as the Omani Arabs and Thais proudly display; his own nationality denied. 

Where does Australia belong? Do we remain a part of the British Empire as our coins suggest? Are we perhaps, as modern political discourse reads, part of Asia? Or neither? Our identity crisis is represented by the spacing of Australian notes at opposite poles of the continent. 

In a modern post-colonial generation that seeks to dissolve racial boundaries, this work forces the viewer to reconsider race; and asks if we are ready to move beyond it, given it's close link to nationhood and the burgeoning Aboriginal sovereignty movement.