I wish acknowledge the First Peoples of this land, lutruwita / Tasmania, who cared for and were the custodians of this country for more than two thousand generations. Today I look to the living culture of the palawa to learn from; and for tomorrow, I understand the importance of their knowledge and of the future leaders emerging within these strong communities.
This mural was commissioned by UTAS (University of Tasmania) and delivered with the assistance of Vibrance Projects. It is painted across two areas of this new public space, and the two halves are visually and conceptually linked. In the larger of the two murals I have painted my daughter, Mia, peering into a portal. I often paint portals in my work as a way of symbolising possibility and potential - the emptiness of nothing from which something springs. Within this portal is a shelf of books, symbolic of human knowledge, and an Eastern Quoll emerging from the depths, symbolising non-human knowledge. Mia’s hand and the quoll’s paw rest upon the edge of the portal, whilst below there is a collection of old drawers, which were made in Tasmania from the late 1800’s by J Walch & Sons using the finest Tasmanian native timbers. Mia wears an earring fashioned by my partner Emily Eliza Arlotte. The drawers and earring can be viewed as symbolic of the knowledge of making, crafting and building. There is a tension between all the elements, demonstrating their relationship to one another.
The larger of two murals by Jamin for UTAS, nipaluna / Hobart.
Close up view of books and earring on Jamin’s inner city mural for UTAS.
On the bookshelf are a series of titles chosen for their connection to place, with one or two exceptions.
The first book on the shelf is Richard Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish that tells the tale of an artist named William Gould, who was convicted of stealing a coat in 1827 and sent from England to the the penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land (lutruwita / Tasmania), where after more crimes (including drunkenness and bank note forgery) was then sent to the dreaded penal station of Sarah Island ‘and there ordered to paint a book of fish’. It seemed like the natural first choice for this mural made with spray cans, an object that has commonly been held in a criminal light and often kept behind bars. Gould’s original Sketchbook of Fishes is also locked away, albeit due to it’s age and fragility, inside the State Library of Tasmania.
The Book of Endless Ends is next, and is indeed an actual book authored by me. However, only one copy exists. I submitted this book (and eight others) for assessment in my second year study at University… in the Painting department. Needless to say I almost failed. In general a book is not a painting, but in this case, the book that tried to be a painting, has now become a painting. About four years ago, the same book also became a song called Endless Ends, produced by one of my musical personas, Kamaflaj Patan.
Following on is Katherine Scholes, author of Rain Queen, who was born in Tanzania (not to be confused with Tasmania) in East Africa, the daughter of a doctor and an artist, and came to Tasmania when she was 10. She has returned to Tanzania many times over the years keeping her ties strong, and her novels draw richly from both places. Katherine is also a documentary maker, and the mother of Hobart artist and Vibrance Projects co-director Jonny Scholes. In 2003, a year or two before I met Jonny, I was cast as an extra in a documentary series called Stories From the Stone Age, appearing for a few seconds smashing rocks on the ground. This documentary was filmed in Hobart by director Roger Scholes (Katherines husband and Jonny’s father) who sadly passed away this year. Vale Roger, you are missed.
Tense Past is a book by acclaimed palawa / Tasmanian Aboriginal artist, Julie Gough. The text is an accompaniment to her major exhibition at the TMAG (Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery) in 2019. Tense Past is an accumulation of Gough’s 20 years of artworks that excavate, interrogate and softly stitch together the past and present of lutruwita and its First Nations peoples.
The next three books are historical. Tongerlogeter tells the story of the Tasmanian Aboriginal war hero who fought against the British Empire in the Black War, though hopelessly outnumbered and out gunned. The Fatal Shore is written by Robert Hughes, the internationally renown Australian art critic who also made the TV series The Shock of the New in the 1980’s. Hughes became fascinated by the history and social effects of early British colonisation and the convict system after filming an art history documentary that led him to Port Arthur in the 1970’s. Child of Gondwana zooms out to describe the geological making of lutruwita / Tasmania across a deeper timeframe of history, written by Keith Corbett who, after a distinguished 60 year career as a geologist, said that “going to university in Hobart from rural North-West Tasmania in 1958 was like going to another planet for this simple country boy”.
Next on the shelf is Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo, though Into the Heart of Darkness, is the more famous of his works (which was later adapted into the film Apocalypse Now). Before Joseph Conrad became regarded as one the great English language novelists, he was a sailor and captain of ships. One of his ships, the Otago, was scuttled in the mighty timtumili minanya / Derwent River that snakes through nipaluna. That area is now called Otago Bay, near to the important piyura kitina / Risdon Cove.
Following on is Into the Heart of Tasmania by UTAS Associate Professor Rebe Taylor, that focuses on the life and explorations of Ernest Westlake, in order to delve into the ancient and continuing culture of the palawa peoples. The next book on the shelf, Truganini by Cassandra Pybus, is similar in that it examines the life of Truganini, through the diaries of George Augustus Robinson. Distinguished academic and palawa man, Greg Lehman, writes further on the complexity of this topic in his work, here is The Palawa Voice for starters.
The next book is by French Philosopher Bruno Latour titled Reassembling the Social - An Introduction to Actor Network Theory. I had the fortune to hear Latour speak in 2015 at the Art Forum series in 2015 at the Tasmanian School of Art (now School of Creative Arts and Media) and this book was included in my PhD thesis list of references. Latour passed away the week before I painted these book titles, so this book is included in homage as much as through any vicarious connection to place. Actor-Network Theory proposes that things exist in shifting networks of relationship; A word for example, can be understood as an actor within the network of language, and language can be understood as an actor within the network of human communication.
The final book on the shelf is A Bone of Fact from 2014 by David Walsh, who you may know is the philanthropic head of MONA (Museum of Old and New Art), a sprawling art museum nestled into the banks of the timtumili minanya / Derwent River, though on the other side to Conrad’s ship the Otago. I’ve had the fortune to be involved with making some art on and around parts of MONA, its ferry and through its festival arms MOFO and Dark MOFO. Before that, I painted an unsolicited portrait of David in 2013 titled The Death of David Walsh. I think David may have been interested in buying the work but was beaten to it by a collector from Sydney who did not know who David was at the time, but enjoyed the emotional quality of the painting. You would have to ask Steven Joyce at Despard Gallery for the full story. This book segue’s back to the first book on the shelf – Richard Flannagan wrote a head-turning article on David Walsh titled Tasmanian Devil that was published by the New Yorker Magazine in 2013.
Of course there were many more titles that I considered – for example I would have loved to have included A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley, later adapted into film as Lion. My mother migrated to Australia from India as an adult, so I love the connections that this book has between India and Tasmania. Another title is a children’s picture book called We Love Country, not yet published, that contains collaborative mural illustrations by palawa artist Luke Emmerton and myself. Keep your eye out for that.
The smaller of two murals by Jamin for UTAS at 137 Elizabeth Street, Hobart, painted in October 2022.
Zooming out, the second mural shifts the viewers perspective to being ‘within’ the portal, whilst my daughter Mia and the quoll peer back inside. The painted vista is of the timtumili minanya / Derwent River and surrounding valleys from atop Kunanyi / Mt. Wellington. If you were to stand where the portal is on the larger mural, you would see to the top of Kunanyi, and so the perspective in the smaller mural ‘transports’ the viewer to that place, looking back down. Kunanyi and timtumili minanya are symbolic of the knowledge of country, and of deep time. Tucked deep into the portal is a nesting pair of Forty Spotted Pardalotes, one of lutruwita / Tasmania’s rarest birds found only on Bruny Island, Maria Island and a few pockets of the south-east. Though small, rare and endangered, they are vital containers of life and knowledge and worthy of our understanding and deepest respect, and their inclusion here is a symbolic reminder of that.
I have titled this mural Umwelt 2, after a word of German origins that roughly translates to ‘environment’ in English, but is nuanced in that it refers to the particular environment experienced by an individual organism. Umwelts overlap, coalesce and fragment. To have a body is to have the capacity to affect and to be affected, and each body has an umwelt that describes and shapes that affect. So these murals are a representation of my own umwelt, or at least a few of the things that relate to my particular experience of the world.
My PhD thesis, titled Fugitive Identity: The Mask, Camouflage & Material Assemblage, examines the above notion of umwelt within an artistic and philosophical framework, which you are welcome to read and you can also view one of my PhD artworks in a video below.
So there you have the story of this mural. Thanks for your time and feel free to browse more of my murals or explore a map of my mural locations.
My sincere thanks to UTAS (University of Tasmania) for the opportunity to paint this mural, and to Jonny Scholes and Vibrance Projects who managed the project beautifully. I graduated from the UTAS School of Creative Arts and Media (formerly Tasmanian School of Art) with a PhD in Fine Arts in 2021, and lectured and tutored at the university between 2006-2012. I have worked with Vibrance on a number of projects including Vibrance Festival 2018 and COMA (Corridor of Modern Art) in 2021. I am passionate about teaching, learning, knowledge and understanding. On this project I mentored and was assisted by Ilana Wherrett in parts, an emerging artist from lutruwita / Tasmania. My parking and access was kindly enabled by the good folk at Tradewear. I extend my deepest thanks to all of these groups and people for supporting this project and making it possible.