Occupied territory of another sort

Australia's ACT (the Australian Capital Territory) strikes me as a powerfully symbolic territory (of a different sort to Winton's territory occupied by the ratepayer) and one that has a place in our collective psychic life.

This fact has not been lost, of course, on the original inhabitants of this land, who for 36 years have resiliently maintained the Aboriginal Tent Embassy near old Parliament House, and right on the Griffin land axis.

The Griffins delineated a land axis, aligned with the summits of four local mountains. It went from Mount Ainslie to Mount Bimberi in the Brindabellas, passing through Camp Hill and Kurrajong. Crossing this at right angles was a water axis along the river, which in the plan became a chain of ornamental basins. By integrating the site’s topography with their design, the Griffins presented the site itself as a symbol ‘of a democratic national identity’ (Vernon, 2002). (The Ideal City)

I found the Griffins' land and water axes to be palpably powerful, on a beating hot New Year's Eve walk that we took last year, past some of the war memorials of Anzac Parade.

Hot letters on the Australian Service Nurses National Memorial:

A shimmering Royal Australian Air Force Memorial, also hot to the touch:

There seem to be many rich layers of land and water "markings" at play in these axes, several cruciform incisions at the heart of our democratic system, overlayed with the complexities of histories and current-day relationships between indigenous and "imported" cultures.

Dispossession is the shadow side of this occupation of territory in such a grand way - I was drawn to this in my poem on the land axis.

on the land axis

dispossession strikes a chord with me –

you want to make this place
eucalyptic

have set your gunyas
here on the levelled lawns

let in long summer evenings
the smokes of your dreamings
mingle with the scents of roses –

me, going from door to door
looking for what's been lacking –

returning, in the end
to the little timbers
the jetty, watching the meteorite

that falls and boils its way
into the churning sea

There are also some thoughts on Canberra in canberra, new year's eve.

canberra, new year's eve

the big lamps hover
in ceremonial attendance
over the wide empty way

the avenue, the monuments, the dry leaf-strewn earth
vent the day’s heavy heat

at the nurses’ memorial
they touch cast letters –
A for australia’s like a small body
exuding body heat

at the air force shrine
bright steel’s hot to touch,
bronze searing

over at vietnam
a quiet thermal outpouring’s going on
while three pink and greys
haggle noisily

korea’s faired best –
granite and stones having reflected
much of the day’s onslaught –

three bright-metal conscripts
standing fresh and prepared
like sentinels for an evacuated city

the inhabitants having made
other plans for the evening

Energies can potentially be evoked by such national symbols on this grand scale - something I was attempting to consider in some recent linocuts (especially meteors over a field and meteor falling on a slope) - perhaps there can be a redemption for Winton's youths suffering the occupation of the ratepayer; a potentially more inclusive and energised life for them, rather than one of social and cultural marginalisation.

And I had in mind in my figure on a land/water axis linocut (at recent linocuts) a figure in touch with some kinds of ceremonial or "knowledge-based" markings in the land and/or water.