Positionality, Thanks, Acknowledgements

We acknowledge that this exhibition is held on Kulin land, and pay respect to Kulin Elders, past, present, and emerging. We also acknowledge that the Kulin Nations never ceded sovereignty to British jurisdiction. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.

I, Nadia Rhook, acknowledge my fraught and privilieged position in curating this exhibition, as a seventh generation white settler woman who benefits from the histories of racism and the dispossession of land and language this exhibition documents. My ancestors did not have to study for the Dictation Test, or rally for their right to belong in Victoria-cum Australia. The histories presented here may be shared, multi-racial and relational, but they are at the same time grossly unequal and unjust. These injustices continue to shape the telling of history in the present.

For their support for 'Moving Tongues', I’d like to thank La Trobe University, City of Melbourne’s Library Service, the Public Records Office of Victoria, the late Tracey Banivanua Mar, Tanya Fitzgerald, Bronwyn Roper, Sophia Cai, Ashley Higgs, Gabriella Haynes, Elizabeth Downes, David Harris, Sophie Couchman, Karen Schamberger, Rani Pramesti, Allison Chan, Catherine Chan, Arjun Rajkhowa, Eleanor Jackson, John Young, Esteban Hernandez, and Anh Nguyen.