Blog posts

Scent of a Falling Dark closes

Its been an amazing  couple of weeks down at the Moores Building while the exhibition has been on. There’s been a lot of interest in the work, in the themes it represents, and a lot of wonderful conversations with people who have viewed it: conversations about thylacines (some with direct connections to the last thylacines in captivity) with others who swear they have seen it; and with many, many people about extinctions. Thanks to all who came, to all who wrote in my visitor’s book, and especially to those young artists who drew pictures in that same book for me as a memory of their visit. It is with a definite touch of sadness that I have taken my thylacines down and packed up the exhibition. Until next time…

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Thylacines, museums and the colonial past

A recent essay by Penny Edmonds and Hannah Stark in The Conversation (6 April 2018) about the thylacine specimens in the Natural History Museum of London brings the loss of this amazing animal into sharp focus.

I was struck to learn that at the Dark Mofo Festival in Tasmania last year, a huge effigy of the thylacine was ritually burnt at Macquarie Point in something called ‘the Purging’.

To find out more, read their excellent article:

https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-on-the-trail-of-the-london-thylacines-91473