Destiny Deacon
Freefall, 2001
Kuku/ Erub/ Mer artist and artivist Destiny Deacon was possessed of a deadly humour and a sense of playfulness that disarms her audience. Through her work she sought to disrupt prevailing representations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that dehumanise and reinforce negative stereotypes.Her potent images and installations that wittily subvert racism have left an indelible mark on the Australian art landscape and form an important part of the University of Melbourne art collection.
Deacon’s Forced into Images series tells the story of a girl from birth to adulthood. The initial image, Freefall, depicts her being born out of the clouds, but subsequent vignettes show masked children performing or being forced to assume an identity other than themselves. The series title was borrowed from an unpublished letter by the African American novelist Alice Walker to a social worker friend: ‘I see our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, captured and forced into images, doing hard time for all of us’.
- Artist / Maker
- Destiny Deacon (1957—2024)
- Creation Date
- 2001
- Collection
- Michael Buxton Collection
- Subjects
- Photography - photographic prints
- Materials used
- light jet prints from Polaroid originals
- Dimensions
(H x W x D) - 77 x 95 cm
- Credit line
- Michael Buxton Collection, the University of Melbourne Art Collection. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program by Michael and Janet Buxton
- Accession number
- 2018.231.052.003
- Copyright
- © Courtesy of the artist's Estate and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney Request Access