David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :

'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)

(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.


26 May 2013

Th|ink again

   
Two acts of pointing, twenty years apart.

In 1993, AFL St.Kilda star footballer Nicky Winmar was racially abused by Collingwood fans. 

Winmar's now famous response was to raise his jumper and point with pride to his Aboriginal skin.
      


This week, twenty years later, Winmar returned to Melbourne from Perth for the AFL's Indigenous Round and to share with many the ongoing significance of this defiant action. 
 
Indeed, the AFL had been promoting this week's round with images of Sydney Swans double Brownlow medalist Adam Goodes renewing the Winmar gesture.
     

     
Toward the end of Friday night's Collingwood vs Sydney Swans game at the MCG  - shown live on free-to-air television - a Collingwood spectator shouted at Adam Goodes and called him an "ape". 

Goodes stopped, turned back and, to a security official, pointed to the person who had racially abused him.
          


It was a 13 year old girl. She was expelled from the ground.
Victoria Police said on Saturday morning that a 13-year-old girl was interviewed over the incident and released last night pending further inquiries.
But Goodes said he is not blaming the girl, saying she deserved to be supported and educated about why the racist comment was unacceptable.
"I'm pretty gutted to be honest," he told reporters in Melbourne on Saturday morning.
- ABC. NEWS
Since then, much discussion. 

Today is National Sorry Day.

.  .  .  .

Why NOT footballers-for-Social Reform?

In 2013 this doesn't seem such an unreasonable question, or proposition even - the AFL has been very reformist in recent decades - but in 1976 this poster sketch appeared a thing of fanciful idealism.


 collection : Ian Potter Museum of Art    
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  A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
  someone looks at something ...
  
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