JUDY WATSON | 'skullduggery' | Publication

2nd edition

‘skullduggery’ highlights issues of bone hunting, collecting, and repatriation of Australian Aboriginal remains – capturing the way Indigenous people were viewed as a commodity and resource, rather than people whose lives and cultural practices should be respected. The work focuses on correspondence between Matron Agnes Kerr from Burketown Hospital (Gulf of Carpentaria), curators at the Wellcome Museum (London), and a third party regarding the trade in Australian Aboriginal people’s bones. Kerr sent the skull and breastplate of King Tiger to the Wellcome Museum. The ‘skullduggery’ letters concerned the collecting of bones of Aboriginal people, including those of King Tiger. He died on Waanyi Country, Watson’s Country.

JUDY WATSON | 'Skullduggery' | Publication

35 pp plus covers
29.7 x 21 cm.
Cover image: (1st edition) digital print of monoprint and stencil spray in white acrylic on black hand-made paper from India produced by Judy Watson for the publication.

2nd edition published in an edition of 1,000