A Proposition towards A Praxis of Treaty with International Country | Portals out of The Garden of Non

Abstract

'A Proposition towards A Praxis of Treaty with International Country | Portals out of The Garden of Non,' is a Creative-Practice-as-Research PhD thesis, seeking to decolonise Originary (so-called 'prehistoric') rock art (petroglyphs), towards the decolonisation of myself.

The research question: "What is the truth-telling required of (post)Western culture in terms of revaluing the contemporary 'present' of Originary (so-called prehistoric) Neolithic petroglyphs in the UK and Europe, as portals of decolonisation?"

The thesis is an artistic journey through the atemporal Originary of (Neolithic) petroglyphs at Ilkley Moor, West Yorkshire, UK; and South Tyrol, Northern Italy; guided through the paragon portal of First Nations' 'meenamatta petroglyphs' in lutruwita (Tasmania), Australia. My research in these three international locations is a solo praxis of transcultural responsibility, grounded in long-term collaborative art praxis with First Nations elders puralia meenamatta Jim Everett (plangermairreenner / pakana), and Gloria Andrews (pakana), in meenamatta country, lutruwita (Tasmania). A descendent of a First Fleet convict from the UK who became a free settler-coloniser of lutruwita in 1808, the project reflects on my personal sense of loss of deep-time ancestral knowledge within my cultural Originary in the UK and Europe.

Archaeology dates petroglyphs in the UK and Europe as being made during the so-called Neolithic "transition" from hunter-gatherer to settler-farmer cultures (c.12,000-3,000BP). However, through the thesis, I suggest that this 10,000 year "transition" harbours far more complex cultural truths denatured through successive waves of Neolithic colonial invasion and contemporary nescience, resulting in an under-recognised deep-time cultural trauma within (post)Western contemporaneity. The result is what I call 'The Garden of Non'. A temporal plane of perpetual self-negation caused by a profound lack of truth-telling to Originary (proto)Western self, evident in the problematic term 'non-Aboriginal', which I argue is an inept deference to presumptive and premature (post)Western (post)coloniality and superficial decoloniality. Identifying and occupying this gap in (post)Western cultural gravitas through art praxis, the thesis advocates for a radical decolonisation of atemporal Originary cultural agency held within the petroglyphs of the UK and Europe, which I suggest can be understood as evidence of (de)colonial resistance during the Neolithic. The contemporary 'present' of Originary petroglyphs is paradoxically revalued within atemporal International Country, via extended journeys of pragmatic cultural pilgrimage through all three locations (UK, Italy, lutruwita) as integral to the generative development of the work.

The resultant PhD thesis is One Work combining Writing and Exhibition. Grounded in the immersive immediacy of large-scale monochrome single-shot HD video projections, sound art and journal notes, combined with various forms of critical writing, a sculpture, and photography. The work is intended to evoke the open, rhythmic, recursive, non-definitive and searching form of creative praxis which interrogates dominant (post)Western modes of perceiving time and landscape. This exdisciplinary approach aims at dissolving methodological and cultural knowledge gaps created by the orthodoxies of (post)Western cultural disciplinarity and historicity. Inviting an artistic and cultural engagement 'through' the petroglyphs as portals for the decolonial dissolution of oneself 'into' International Country: 'being seen' by rock art as distinct from 'looking at' rock art.