Righting the Wrongs, installation view, wall-text paintings, Ocular Lab, Melbourne, Australia, 2008.
Righting the Wrongs, installation view, wall-text paintings, Ocular Lab, Melbourne, Australia, 2008.
Righting the Wrongs, detail, folder and Sorry book, Ocular Lab, Melbourne, Australia, 2008.
Righting the Wrongs, folder detail, wall-text paintings, Ocular Lab, Melbourne, Australia, 2008.
Righting the Wrongs, folder with paint samples detail, wall-text paintings, Ocular Lab, Melbourne, Australia, 2008.
Ocular Lab, Melbourne, Australia, 2008.
Ocular Lab, entrance with remnants of sign painting from previous corner-store ("milk bar") detail, Melbourne, Australia, 2008.
Vernacular sign painting, Melbourne, Australia, 2008.
Vernacular sign painting, Melbourne, Australia, 2008.
Righting the Wrongs, early in installation process, wall-text paintings, Ocular Lab, Melbourne, Australia, 2008.
Righting the Wrongs, early in installation process, wall-text paintings, Ocular Lab, Melbourne, Australia, 2008.
Righting the Wrongs, removing cut-vinyl mask after painting, wall-text paintings, Ocular Lab, Melbourne, Australia, 2008.
Righting the Wrongs (2008)
Righting the Wrongs (Ocular Lab, Melbourne, 2008) is an installation of wall-text paintings of excerpts from the 2008 landmark apologies to Australia’s Aboriginal Stolen Generations and Canada’s First Nations Indian residential school survivors made by Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd (Australia) and Stephen Harper (Canada). The two shades of pink approximate the complexions of these prime ministers at the time of delivering these apologies. In retrospect, this work was a prototype for the public art installation, WE ARE SORRY Melbourne, part of the 2009 Laneway Commissions. In 2010, the Winnipeg Art Gallery hosted a version of WE ARE SORRY by invitation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.