A PREPONDERENCE OF ABORIGINAL BLOOD
Judy Watson (AU)
Can we scientifically define a race? And what social consequences has defining racial identity caused?
a preponderance of aboriginal blood reveals electoral enrolment statutes from the Queensland State Archives, which classified whether a person was a ‘full-blood Aborigine’ (and therefore not entitled to vote) or a ‘half-caste’ (entitled to vote). This was acceptable legal terminology used to deny Aboriginal people their right to vote. Full voting rights were not granted to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians in Queensland until 1965.
‘a preponderance of aboriginal blood’ was a term used in a letter written by a government official in reply to an Aboriginal woman’s request to vote in an election. His answer stated that because she had this perceived status, meaning Aboriginality on both sides of her family, she was not allowed to vote.
The documents within this artist’s book were donated by the families of those who appear in the pages, to the Qld department of communities so that the general public would become aware of the stifling conditions under which Indigenous people had to live. The pen across the paper of these documents within their personal files shows the arrogance and bureaucracy of their controlling overseers.
This artwork is part of The University of Melbourne’s Rare Book Collection
library.unimelb.edu.au/collections/special-collections
Judy Watson was born in 1959 in Mundubbera, Queensland, Australia. She graduated from the University of Southern Queensland in 1979, the University of Tasmania in 1982 and the Monash University in Gippsland in 1986, and currently lives and works in Brisbane. Watson’s matrilineal family is from Waanyi country in Northwest Queensland and her oeuvre – which includes painting, printmaking, drawing, sculpture and video – is inspired by Aboriginal history and culture. It is often concerned with collective memory and uses archival documents to unveil institutionalised discrimination against Aboriginal people.