Blackboy

Blackboy is conceived as a self-portrait of the artist, Dale Harding, a descendant of the Bidjara, Ghungalu, and Garingbal peoples of Central Queensland. In his work, Harding unearths the untold histories of Indigenous communities, confronting the colonial consciousness of contemporary Australia. The glass sculpture was made to match the length of the artist’s body (6 feet, 6 inches); the slight overhang beyond the shelf on which it rests represents his feeling of being oversized and queer—a sense of not fitting in. The shelf also evokes the grim history of displaying Indigenous bodies and objects in Australia.