Ten looking glasses

Ten looking glasses are a series of images exploring issues surrounding the "Batman Treaty" forged at Merri Creek on the sixth of June 1835.  These images explore specifically the objects John Batman traded with the local Aboriginal leaders in return for the some 100 000 acres of land, including the current location of Melbourne.  The objects included twelve red shirts, fifty knives and fifty pounds of flour.  These objects have been arranged to represent natural forms and then photographed in an attempt indicate the meagreness of this trade.  The objects are still very much identifiable.  This emphasises that they are no substitute for what was really being given up.  This speaks directly to differences in terms of beliefs about possession and ownership between the two cultures at the time.  Western culture was and still is focussed on the land as something you can own whereas in my understanding indigenous culture has a far more spiritual, metaphysical and holistic relationship with the land.