Apology to Roadkill Redux

The Artswipe

Rat series, 2009 and ongoing

mobile phone photos

I'm back from the dead dear readers, as is my new series Rat, which I shot while holidaying in Venice. Here's a taste of things to come. It's a deep work and speaks to notions of sociotemporality, as does all my work.

Church of the Poison Mind II

The Artswipe

Spot the Difference (from the Sorry series) 2008
Mobile phone propaganda

The Artwipe made a little pilgrimage to church this morning. I rarely go in, I just check out the signage outside as I always enjoy a Christian pun first thing in the morning. My local church had a sign announcing, "It's Good to Say Sorry" followed by a bible verse. As forgiveness is a Christian past-time, it's unsurprising that Rudd's Sorry Day has been turned into a kind of churchey truism, resplendent with as much meaning as a bumper sticker that might read "Quakers Say NO to ALL WAR". Yes, such a bumper sticker exists. See image below.

So anyway. Today I thought I would actually go inside the church and say my own sorry to God, Mankind, Womankind, Indigenouskind.... Even "In-kind". Because sometimes people give me free shit! As I entered the church, the Reverend Man greeted me, we sat down and he said, "What ails you child?"

The Artswipe said:

What concerns me, Father, is how Christianity has been inextricably linked to the injustices experienced by Aboriginals in this country. Now that the Australian Government says Sorry, the Church de-politicises the Sorry gesture for its own trite and ye-olde-worlde marketing machine. Is this not a colonialist mentality of theft: to drain the real meaning of the apology to the Stolen Generation and recast it within a Judeo-Christian ideology where forgiveness is never Black as it's always whiter than White and washed in the Blood of the Lamb?

The Artswipe
From The Seatbelt Series, 2007 and ongoing
Mobile phone moment

Sorry (Britney) Day

Monika Behrens

Leave Britney Alone! 2007
Oil on board
Courtesy the artist
Photo: Tom Polo

The Artswipe was stuck in traffic this morning listening to Triple J's mind-numbing morning radio program. One day I'll iPod the car, I promise. The news presenter at 7am started with the story on everyone's lips: Sorry Day, which happens finally Wednesday 13th February. If you've been living under Ayers Rock, on another planet, or down Howard's End, then you might need to be reminded that it is the day when the Australian Government finally lead the way in saying sorry for the trauma and injustices imposed on our indigenous peoples since the dawn of whiteness in this land girt by sea. Of particular emphasis in the Sorry rhetoric is making amends to the Stolen Generations.

Soda_Jerk
Nothing Compares 2 U, 2007
Photo collage
Courtesy the artists

So it's all over the news and this morning the poor Triple J newsreader kept tripping over his words and uttered a particularly tricky sentence including the words 'stolen' and 'sorry'. As alliteration must not be a strong suit, he collapsed both words so they came out as 'stoli'. How racist to bring up alcohol in this context, I thought indignantly! After a few stunned moments, I realise anyone can get a little tongue tied. And as it's very early in the morning and as reading the news is probably one of the most challenging jobs in the food chain, I forgive him, I say Sorry.

Soda_Jerk
Tabloid Trash Attack (50ft Brit vs Kevzilla) 2006
Photo collage, commissioned by Runway Magazine
Courtesy the artists

But as political correctness is not one of The Artswipe's stronger points, I started thinking about how this historic day should be the start of universal sorryness. Now craving a Stoli and Coke at 7:10am-ish and thinking about Stolen Generations, I began to realise we all have to say sorry to so many people. My indigenous brothers and sisters, I'm sorry. To everyone I've wronged, I'm sorry. One person I've wronged recently is Britney Spears. To Britney, I'm sorry. Like all child stars whose transition into adulthood is wracked with booze, pills, paparrazi, Vegas weddings, abandoned kids, mental illness, Britney is a babywoman whose childhood was stolen out from under her. "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman", as her song goes. We have all wronged Britney so join me some time soon when I lobby Parliaments of the World for a Sorry Britney Day.