Jonathan Jones

untitled (car parks)

Jonathan Jones
untitled (car parks)
occupy v to take up (space, time,
etc) / to engage or employ (the mind,
attention, etc, or a person) / to take
possession of (a place), as by invasion /
to hold (a position, office, etc) / to be
resident or established in (a place) as
its tenant / to tenant1
The recent Occupy movements, the Tent Embassies in Canberra
and on Matagarup (Heirisson Island) in Perth, Western Australia,
and the Single Nyoongar Land Claim2 have brought into sharp
focus the zones of contestation that are taking place in
contemporary society as they relate to the negotiation of
homelands, and the pattern of economic and socio-cultural
exchange that is currently occurring.
Complex patterns of cultural exchange and interaction have
caused extraordinary shifts in the configuration of occupation
across the globe, but perhaps no more so than on and in the
lands of colonised Indigenous peoples. Geographical dislocation
has been instrumental in an almost fatal cultural displacement
for Indigenous people across the continent. The legacy of removal
from Homelands has forced Indigenous people to rapidly modify
how connection and re-connection occurs to Country, kin and
to culture.
The site-specific work of Jonathan Jones (b1978) engages and
challenges the viewer to consider ideas about the disrupted
occupation of space and the concept of dislocation, both as it
relates to Indigenous people and to a broader global context.
Jones is Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi Indigenous peoples from central
and northern New South Wales, respectively and the establishing
of an installation in prime Nyoongar territory at, specifically,
the centre of the largest public car park in the Perth CBD could
almost be construed as assumptive, were it not for the explicit
acknowledgment by the artist that he is, in fact, camping in
anothers land, temporarily claiming space and country. The
tarpaulin of the work becomes a metaphor for takeover, a very
real and tangible thing of occupation. The construction, however,
is a pretend place, a conjured improvisation of built and found
form. The deliberately rudimentary space has nudged its way
1
Macquarie Encyclopedic Dictionary, 2010
edition, Macquarie Dictionary Publishers
Pty Ltd, Sydney
2
the traditional country of the Nyoongar
(also spelt Noongar and Nyungar) people
of Western Australia extends roughly from
Esperance at the southern tip of WA to just
below Geraldton in the north-west and to
Southern Cross in the east. On 17 December
2009 the State Government signed a
Heads of Agreement with the South West
Aboriginal Land and Sea Council aimed
at resolving the six Noongar (South West
Aboriginal Land and Sea Council spelling)
native title claims over Perth and the south-
west of WA by negotiation rather than by
slow and costly legal action, which has been
running in the federal court for twelve years.
The negotiations covered a wide range of
issues including recognition of the traditional
ownership of Noongar land, a range of health
and education programs, and possible joint
management of some national parks, as well
as other initiatives aimed at strengthening
Noongar culture, and community self-
determination. The negotiation process aimed
at resolving the Noongar native title claims
and achieving a broader land settlement over
Perth and the south-west of WA has started
as of the date of this essay, and is expected
to be finalised, and ready for implementation,
by December 2012; from South West
Aboriginal Land and Sea Council, 2012,
available at noongar.org.au
into this foreign cultural environment, and invites the viewer to
contemplate the moveable and very transitory history it offers.
Jones talks about his work evoking common memories by working
with domestic materials, minimal forms and designs, and historical
moments of bicultural relationships. 3 The use of the tarpaulin is 3
f rom artist statement to author, 23
suggestive of the great Aussie tradition of camping, in which a February 2012
typical Aussie weekend, particularly a long one, would commence
with a three-hour drive in a designated direction, followed by
the selection of a campsite and the pitching of the tent/dome/
humpy; it would end usually with a sightseeing tour and shared
meal. This benign signifier the tarpaulin functions in dual ways
in Jones works. It operates simultaneously as a bland material,
capable of providing a waterproof shelter to its occupants and used
in countless habitable structures by holiday goers universally,
and as a signifier of a foreign material, introduced to its context
to cover, to claim, to deny, to keep out.
The notion of home is a critical organising metaphor for how we
understand the relationship between individuals and society at
large, and for how this work can be interpreted. A wide range of
cultural and legal practices enshrine the home with various
protections that ensure the dweller a degree of privacy, security,
solitude and control over their lives there. 4 Jones temporary 4
 aniel J Weitzner, 2007, From Home to
D
Home Page: New Challenges to Basic
home derides the western notion of home in its flimsiness,
Notions of Privacy and Property, available
its impermanence. A transient symbol of vagrancy, this home at dig.csail.mit.edu/2007/05/ic-home-
offers none of the privacy, security or solitude stipulated by weitzner.html
Daniel J Weitzner.
Weitzner states that
Rights in general and privacy in particular are
about boundaries: borders we erect around
ourselves or those limitations that society is
prepared to respect. The most fundamental of
these demarcation lines are our home walls; the
boundary of the home is often the principal
dividing line between our public and private
selves. Inside the home, we can expect to be
free from arbitrary government intrusion, we have
broad leeway in how we behave and use our
Jonathan Jones
untitled (car parks)

property, and we can prevent others from

entering and disturbing our solitude, even if
they have strong reasons to communicate
with us.
Jones installation makes a pertinent point about the differing
notions of occupation held by many Indigenous people that
drastically conflict with widely held western views about home.
The conflict that is currently occurring (in relation to the occupation
of place) between Aboriginal people and the broader community
(authorities such as the police and government, neighbours etc)
are, in the opinion of the author, due in a large part to differing
notions of home and occupation.
Many Aboriginal people consider karleep, or home, as a concept
to be much broader than the abode in which you live. Home
isnt just and doesnt necessarily equate to the standard brick-and-
tile three-bedroom house. Home is your country; your mothers
country; your grandfathers country. You may have only been born
there. You may only go back there once every ten years. You might
not have a house on the land. But it is Home and everything within
it is to be utilised, cared for and protected in the appropriately
handed-down manner.
If the principles above are applied, and home encompasses country
and broader communal space, then the divide between public
and private diminishes. Fighting that might happen behind closed
doors, for example, is the same fighting that may be witnessed
Jonathan Jones
in the street, because of the broader public/private demarcation. untitled (car parks) 2012
With Indigenous people, a great deal happens in public. After tarpaulin, aluminium, perspex, fluorescent tubes and fittings, electrical
all, you feel you have a right to behave as you wish in the safety cable; supported by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney
and security of your home environment. Jones assemblage takes 3 structures; each 204 x 233 x 447 cm
installation view State Library Car Park, Perth Cultural Centre
us into the heart of the public versus private debate being played photograph by Eva Fernandez
out across the country at present. His work takes the viewer to courtesy the artist
a place where individual and collective memories collide with the
skeletons of home and their loaded embodiments. Clotilde Bullen is a Nyoongar curator at the
Art Gallery of Western Australia
untitled (car parks) is part of the Perth Cultural Centre Ephemeral
Public Art Program, 29 March29 April 2012

Curated by Consuelo Cavaniglia, Artsource, Perth

Developed by the Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority in

partnership with the Department of Culture and the Arts JonathanJones.com. au