This installation of five glass and steel boats on the River Torrens is by Adelaide artist and Samstag scholar Shaun Kirby.
Born in London in 1958, Kirby migrated to Adelaide with his family in the 1960s as part of the Australian Government’s post-World War II Assisted Passage Migration Scheme. Inspired by the handwritten letters of nineteenth and twentieth century migrants and the artist’s own experiences, Kirby’s work functions as a historical as well as personal reflection on migration and the role of language in fostering a sense of belonging and identity. The translucence and fragility of the origami-like boats evoke the idea of a journey.
For Kirby, the boats speak to ‘being out of your depth, between places… Not really grounded here, but no longer in England’.
Kirby lived at the Elder Park Migrant Hostel (the site of the current Adelaide Festival Centre). The onshore element of this work contains text that is the result of a collaboration with the Kaurna Warra Pintyardi indigenous language working group.
It reads, Ngaiera karralika kauwingga taikutti yerra kumanedi: ‘the sky and the outer world are connected in the waters and the two become one.’
The nearby Migration Museum provides more opportunities to learn about the ways in which migration has shaped the history and culture of South Australia.
By Catherine Barron, History Trust of South Australia
Uploaded 27 November 2018
Cite this
Catherine Barron, History Trust of South Australia, ‘Talking Our Way Home’, SA History Hub, History Trust of South Australia, https://sahistoryhub.history.sa.gov.au/things/talking-our-way-home/
Sources
Catlin Langford and The Adelaide City Explorer Team, ‘Talking our way home’, http://adelaidecityexplorer.com.au/items/show/92 accessed 17 October 2018.
City of Adelaide Public Art Guide, ‘Talking our Way Home‘, accessed 15 October 2018.
Thylacine, ‘Shaun Kirby’, http://www.thylacine.com.au/who-what/shaun-kirby/ accessed 15 October 2018.
University of South Australia, ‘Samstag Alumni 1998: Shaun Kirby‘, accessed 15 October 2018.
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