Commissioned by Carriageworks, REMEMBER ME is a monumental, illuminated text first exhibited in 2020, the year of the 250th anniversary of Captain James Cook’s first landfall at Botany Bay and the HMB Endeavour’s charting of the east coast of Australia. Rennie has responded with a present-day memorial in recognition of the frontier wars, the massacres and the survival of the original sovereigns of this country – the Aboriginal people of Australia. He asks us to consider the personal impact of our past and how history is made today:
'On April 29, I choose not to celebrate the arrival of colonial invaders and the dispossession of our land. Instead I want to acknowledge the original inhabitants whose lives were changed forever on this day, as well as affirm our survival, and reiterate that sovereignty was never ceded.'
– Reko Rennie, 2020
Reko Rennie
REMEMBER ME
2020 Naarm/Melbourne; Gadigal/Sydney
LEDs, plastic, aluminium, electrical components
Gift of the Eva, Mila and Reko Collection through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program
