Once upon a time in WASPASIA. – 2019

Mixed media assemblage. Conjoined shaped paper-wasp nests on newsprint. H40 x W58 cm

In a combined protest against Journalistic censorship, all of the major newspapers countrywide, released a simulated ‘redacted’ front page on 21st October 2019. This example, which forms the backdrop of the work was printed by local newspaper “The Central Western Daily” in Orange NSW. It is uncommon for Australian media across the spectrum, from their standard centrist to right-wing views, to make such a ‘radical’ protest. But it is their own freedom to investigate and express which is at stake here. This is a narrative of the media – about the media and speaks volumes about Australian culture.

We are [miss]governed by lie-prone, mean-spirited and expedient White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (M.E.N.)

In Once upon a time in WASPASIA I have constructed an aerial  map of the former New Holland currently known as Australia, comprised of retrieved abandoned paper-wasp [ghost] nests. This is affixed to the resistance to the censorship broadsheet. The hand-drawn calligraphic parallel marks could represent waves which form a symbolic single-directional current behind the State of Australia.  Being made of paper the work is somewhat ephemeral which speaks to the fragility of the much-mistreated and exploited Island Continent.

The grid formed by the differently articulated ‘nests’ offer varying shades of whiteness and also loosely references the various language groupings of Australia’s First Nation Peoples.

Виктор Гордон (December 2019)