Luminous glass artworks bring troubling histories into the light

February 14, 2024 5:00 AM

The Art Gallery of WA has meticulously curated thousands of pieces of delicate glass created by a First Nations artist, Yhonnie Scarce, to tell significant stories. Two floors of a Perth gallery have been filled with large-scale glass works that depict nuclear fallout from nuclear testing conducted at Woomera, South Australia in the 1950s, the impacts of uranium mining and intimate family history. In the largest survey of work by Yhonnie Scarce, a Kokatha and Nukunu artist from South Australia, the Art Gallery of WA has brought together pieces that include two 2000-piece hanging glass works.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (9 comments total)

Yet again, WA (Western Austrailia) vs WA (Washington State, US) catches me up. I was excited to maybe go see this on a future trip there, but then I got to the second sentence and realized it is actually the far away WA with Perth, not the closer WA with Seattle. The photos in the article make this look like an amazing exhibit that would be worth visiting.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:00 AM on February 14 [6 favorites]

Thanks for this. Large scale glass installations are always so cool and interesting.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:21 AM on February 14 [3 favorites]

Wow, this looks amazing.
posted by joannemerriam at 7:15 AM on February 14

Holy wow, thank you for posting this. It's staggeringly beautiful, and it communicates extremely well.
posted by theora55 at 8:27 AM on February 14

"But I really hope that it educates people about the history of Australia, and its treatment of Aboriginal people."

It's a horrific and shameful history but also a horrific and shameful current situation.
Indigenous Australians today have significantly lower life expectancies than non-indigenous Australians.
The Australian government has an ongoing history of 'helping' Indigenous Australians in ways that displace them from community, language and land in ways that result in psychosocial harms. The provision of health services in many remote Indigenous communities is particularly lacking which leads to higher infant mortality rates and lower life expectancies. This sounds a lot like genocide because it is genocide.

Australia needs to do better. Not just the government but the non-indigenous people, myself included.
posted by neonamber at 9:21 AM on February 14

This gorgeous work underscores the point Rebecca Solnit made in her book Savage Dreams: the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not the only survivors of nuclear war. Indigenous people in Australia, the Marshall Islands, Nevada, Siberia and elsewhere were also exposed to these weapons, without their consent and often without their knowledge.

To commemorate these crimes by rendering native plants in glass is brilliant. These bombs melt the earth and turn it to glass.
posted by rdc at 9:27 AM on February 14 [4 favorites]

Beautiful work, and in a place I know so little about (I too am from the US and mistook WA for Washington; interestingly the title and first sentence could still fit as the terrible treatment of indigenous people exists in both countries.).
posted by j810c at 6:34 AM on February 15

That and Tacoma Washington is home to both an excellent glass museum and I have seen numerous Native American glass artist exhibitions at the Glass Museum, Tacoma Art Museum and the Seattle Art Museum.
posted by midmarch snowman at 7:04 AM on February 15

That and Tacoma Washington is home to both an excellent glass museum and I have seen numerous Native American glass artist exhibitions at the Glass Museum, Tacoma Art Museum and the Seattle Art Museum.

And with how the radiation releases from Hanford affected tribes in the region, it seemed unsurprising for this to be in the local WA.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:12 AM on February 15