The healing garden, Wybalenna, Flinders Island, Tasmania
2005; printed 2010
from the Portrait of a distant land series 2005
Medium
gelatin silver photograph
Measurements
36.8 × 54.1 cm (image) 50.7 × 60.6 cm (sheet)
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, 2012
© Ricky Maynard/Copyright Agency, 2023
Gallery location
Gallery 4
Ground Level, NGV Australia
About this work
Ricky Maynard’s documentary-style photographic series Portrait of a Distant Land challenges historical myths, offers alternative narratives, and highlights the strength and resilience of Tasmanian Aboriginal people. Informed by collective oral histories, this deeply personal series captures black-and-white imagery of significant cultural and historical sites and moments across varied landscapes in lutruwita/Tasmania significant to Maynard’s ancestors, Country and community. Among the most poignant of photographs in the series is the solemn and funereal The healing garden, Wybalenna, Flinders Island, Tasmania, which depicts a grove of casuarina trees surrounded by a dilapidated picket fence that marks a massacre.
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
Tasmania
Accession Number
2012.197
Department
First Nations Australia
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Daryl and Anne Whinney