- This event has passed.
Author Talk- Monumental Disruptions
June 22 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm
Author Talk – Monumental Disruptions
Thursday 22 June, 5.30pm
Bookings Essential – 6333 6281
This book is essential reading for anyone interested in how a society commemorates and acknowledges its complex history and this topic is particularly relevant to Bathurst as we approach the bicentenary of the declaration of Martial Law and the Bathurst War between Wiradjuri and British nations. Do conventional statues and memorials reflect the complexity of our past? Meet one of the authors and join in the debate.
Copies of the book will be available for purchase on the day, and prior to the event, from Books Plus Bathurst.
This event is part of Bathurst Library’s Revealing Stories Program.
What is the place of Australia’s colonial memorials in today’s society? Do we remove, destroy or amend? Monumental Disruptions investigates how these memorials have been viewed, and are viewed, by First Nations people to find a way forward.
In June 2020, on the heels of Australia’s James Cook anniversary commemorations and statue-toppling Black Lives Matter protests in the USA, dozens of police were sent to guard a statue of Cook in Hyde Park, Sydney. Despite the police presence, two women spray painted ‘sovereignty never ceded’ across the statue.
Scenes like this are being repeated around the world as societies reassess memorials that no longer reflect today’s values. Should they be removed, destroyed or amended? Monumental Disruptions looks for answers. It investigates why commemorations were erected, their meaning for Aboriginal people in Australia, both then and now, and it compares Australia’s experience with that overseas.
Those who question colonial commemorations have been called ‘UnAustralian’.
However, in Australia, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities are working together to forge new ways to mark the past. As documented in Monumental Disruptions, in 2016 a debate in the Bathurst community about the George Evans statue led to an amendment to the interpretative signage near the memorial on Kings Parade.
Google Calendar 
