Disaster Narratives

Kate McMillan

12 February - 21 March 2004
Westend Gallery

Disaster Narratives is a multi media installation that draws from various world histories and attempts to locate traces of things that have been covered up and often forgotten. From Mao Zedong's Underground City to European holiday destinations built on top of the rubble of war, Disaster Narratives attempts to examine how we choose to ignore what lies beneath our feet. The work pulls us back to local histories featuring the former Aboriginal prison and current holiday destination of Rottnest Island framed by Rachmaninov's symphony of 'The Isle of the Dead', assuring us we are personally prone to the act of un-remembering. Rather than offer predictable images of trauma and war, Disaster Narratives is about the traces of loss and forgetting that litter human history and about the compulsion towards creating events that we will ultimately want to forget. This exhibition is the culmination of two years of research and utilises video, sound and photography.