I was never taught about Aboriginal history at school. The battles fought between the invading British colonists and local Aboriginal people never seemed to enter the classroom. There was no mention of the Black War in Tasmania nor any similar war or battle waged on the mainland, only romantic stories of Captain James Cook discovering Australia and the convict settlements of Sydney. It was only when I stepped out of the classroom and into the landscape that people told me stories of battles or massacres that took place there. 

My daguerreotype series Hopes, Dreams and Nightmares was photographed in the potato-growing fields around Trentham. Here I was reminded of stories my non-Indigenous father told me about how early colonial farmers in Victoria would deliberately cover up Aboriginal burials and massacre graves by building a shed, farm house or planting a tree over such sites so that the ground couldn’t be disturbed. I wanted to highlight the historic traces that these farming landscapes still hold.