Naming rights
AS THE MOVEMENT to actively recognise and remember the contributions of women continues apace worldwide, it is fitting to first look at Destiny Deacon’s Eva Johnson, writer (1994). In this work, Deacon, an accomplished KuKu and Erub/Mer artist, honours Johnson, a Malak Malak woman, acclaimed activist, poet, actor, director and playwright who has written about land rights, Stolen Generations and Aboriginal women’s rights and was named Aboriginal Artist of the Year in 1985. In Deacon’s portrait, Johnson, who was taken from her family and Country as a child of the Stolen Generations, adopts the pose of a young Aboriginal man in a painting by J.M. Crossland, Portrait of Nannultera, a Young Poonindie Crickete r (1854). Deacon felt sorry for this young man dressed like an English cricketer, trapped in a world not of his own making, taken from his people and culture to live on a mission.
In her transposition of the past in the present Deacon establishes parallel histories across time, investing Johnson with power, replacing the cricket bat with an axe, and creating a portrait that is both an act of reclamation and a tribute. Here, Deacon and Johnson combine to remind us of the impacts of colonisation on First Nations peoples and the potency of their activism in retelling their stories.
