What is your real name? Sir Joseph Banks-town

Joan Ross. Bankstown Biennale 2020

The use hi-vis fluoro yellow in my work as a metaphor for colonisation, as a visual cue to show the invasion of something foreign and controlling, the colour itself visually invading our modern world as a virus would. Bankstown was named in the typical colonial way after Sir Joseph Banks who arrived with James Cook in 1770, not taking into account that the area was already occupied and named well before they took possession. So what was the name of this area before Banks marked his territory? 

I only recently found out that Bankstown was named after Banks and realised just how easily we are unconsciously coerced by the colonial view & how much we need to question decisions made in less enlightened times.

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Joan Ross. The Claiming of things, 2012
Single channel HD Video Animation

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Sir Joseph Banks
John Hunter, Governor preceeding Arthur Phillip examined the country himself, and established one of the pioneer colonies there, called Bank's Town, today written as one word Bankstown. Hunter named the area Bankstown after Sir Joseph Banks, who travelled to Australia with Captain James Cook in 1770.

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