A Blanket Return, 2004
One blanket shellfish basket, maireener shells, blanket, wire, wool, 20 cm wide x 20 cm deep x 45 cm high .
One blanket kelp water carrier, kelp shells, blanket, wood, wool, 50 cm wide x 19 cm deep x 36 cm high
Two blanket spears, black crow shells, blanket, wood, wool, each 240 cm high x 3 cm wide x 3 cm deep
collection of the National Museum of Australia

This work is a commentary on the repatriation of cultural material held in institutions including museums across the globe. A blanket return or repatriation is a reflection on the call made by many Indigenous peoples for illicitly taken cultural items to be returned to their respective communities. Since the French arrived on Tasmanian shores Tasmanian Aboriginal Cultural material has been studied and collected. The Baudin Expedition of 1802 made detailed ethnographic illustrations of cultural objects, drawings which I am referencing in this work. By Blanketing these objects of culture I am suggesting that objects such as these have survived, buffeted from time, and ironically by careful handling by their captors in museums, but this survival has come at the expense of the objects participating in their intended, usual cultural lives. Covering these blanketed objects with shells is my way of transmitting the powerful aura these cultural objects hold for me. Now some of these objects of captive culture can return, repatriated to their respective communities generations on since they were last held in their homelands - what does this mean ? Will the kelp carriers ever again hold water, the baskets ever be slung over the shoulder and taken into deep water to hold abalone and other shell fish, will the spears fly neatly across space and time into the kangaroo, the (now extinct) emu and the (presumed now extinct) Tasmanian tiger ? No. A blanket return for objects to be seen and live again in their homelands, by the descendents of their makers, asks for respect and recognition of the survival of the culture that made these objects. It is surely beneficial for current and future generations to build and negotiate their own cultural values with complete toolkits in situ. May we look after our objects of culture as those have before us.

Julie Gough, July 2004.

Plomley, N.J.B., 1983, The Baudin Expedition and the Tasmanian Aborigines, 1802, Blubber Head Press, Sandy Bay Tasmania.