In L ving Memory
2025
Medium
two-channel colour digital video, sound
Measurements
5 min 40 sec (looped)
Credit Line
Purchased with funds donated by Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family, D’Lan Contemporary, and anonymous donors, 2025
© Dean Cross. Image courtesy STATION Gallery, Melbourne
Gallery location
Gallery 2
Ground Level, NGV Australia
About this work
Dean Cross’s multidisciplinary practice explores identity through his experiences as a First Nations person in Australia with familial colonial histories. Originally commissioned by the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri, the two-channel video work In L ving memory features Cross performing an improvised dance informed by what he describes as ‘blood memory’: the genetic and spiritual inheritances passed down through generations. Cross is the first man in his family not to enlist in military service, breaking an intergenerational chain of duty that had endured for over 145 years. The resulting work is a melancholic meditation on time, lineage and emotional memory.