AustLit

'Norman washes the clothes by hand in water drawn from the Hawksbury River, which runs through part of the artist’s ancestral country. The Hawksbury region was one of the first areas outside of Port Jackson (Sydney) to be occupied by free settlers, and saw some of the earliest and bloodiest conflicts between local clans and Europeans.'

'Norman washes the clothes silently and hangs them to dry on lines which intersect the space. When the clothes are hung out, they form an unstable surface for a looping projection of analogue slides, each hand inscribed with the name, date and location of every documented massacre of Indigenous people that has taken place on the Australian continent under British colonial rule.'

'Audiences reclaim their clothing once it is dry- it is returned to them bearing the symbolic trace of a violent and largely unspoken history.' (Source: Sarah-Jane Norman website)

'Corpus Nullius/Blood Country is a work in which the artist pierces the two words that comprise the Latin phrase Terra Nullius, firstly into the uncured hide of a freshly slaughtered lamb and secondly into their own flesh, using small, pearl-headed needles.'

'In a performative action which is both delicate and viscerally powerful, Norman inscribes the word NULLIUS onto the skin of their chest, in a ritual gesture of complex reclamation, in which they declare their own body as belonging to no-one. This statement is troubled, however, by the presence of other bodies- those of animals, specifically sheep (a reference to the adage that the nation of Australia was "built on the sheeps back") reared on stolen land and slaughtered for their meat and skins- the inclusion of which brings broader questions of corporial and territorial ownership into the fray. A layered and haunting reflection on the question of dispossession, agency, and the relationship between body, ancestry and land.' (Source: Sarah-Jane Norman website)

'In Take This, For It Is My Body, the audience are invited to enjoy a traditional afternoon tea. This typically British cultural ritual was imported to Australia by Colonists and remains a mainstay to this day, particularly in rural areas; a working day on any farm is typically punctuated by a 4pm tea break, and country tea houses offer Cream Tea in the "Devonshire" style- milky black tea, served with scones, strawberry jam and clotted cream- to passing tourists.'

'Norman appropriates this ritual as a means of reflecting on the personal and political consequences of the official Commonwealth policy of racial assimilation, a process of gradually "breeding out" the Indigenous populations of Colonial territories. They make and serve the audience a delightful spread of tea and fresh scones with jam and cream- a homely, nostaligic treat- which they can opt to consume or otherwise in the full knowledge that the scone batter includes a quantity of the artist's blood. ...' (Source: Sarah-Jane Norman website)

'In the back of a stationary truck, the audience discover an unlikely bedchamber, where they are invited to relinquish into a stranger's embrace. In a moment of fleeting closeness, which is charged with the im/possibility of sexual contact, both audience member and performer become engaged in a meditation on a fundamental human desire: the necessity of intimate touch, to hold and be held in the arms of another. The audience and performance embrace silently for a period of fifteen minutes, during which time anything can happen.' (Source: Sarah-Jane Norman website)