SALA Featured Artist - Fiona HALL
Occupied territory, 1995
From her Adelaide base, Fiona Hall has a truly international career. Occupied territory is the first three-dimensional beaded work made by Hall, commissioned for the opening of the Museum of Sydney, which is built on the site of the first Government House in Australia.
Four indigenous plants are crafted from nails and black glass beads while the four introduced species are constructed from white and blood-red glass beads. The choice of species has been guided by the endemic plants found in the Sydney area, such as banksia and acacia, and by those introduced to the fledgling colony such as fig and pear. Hall’s choice of nails and beads refer to the trading items of the early nineteenth century, the types of trinkets used to mollify Indigenous people.
The peach, which carries a human tooth as its seed, also carries the words 'Thus we hope to prosper'. This phrase was printed on the first Sydney Gazette, published by Governor King in 1803, and like the nearby painting after Thomas Watling, it expresses the optimism of the new colony. For Hall this optimism is offset by the displacement of Aboriginal culture.
Other works of art
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detail: Fiona Hall
Australia, born 1953
Occupied territory
1995, Adelaide
glass beads, wire, nails, tooth, vitrine (glass and wood)
Gift of Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation 1999
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
© Fiona Hall
Fiona Hall
Australia, born 1953
Cell culture
2002, Adelaide
glass, silver, plastic, vitrine (wood, glass)
157.0 x 247.0 x 90.0 cm (vitrine)
44.8 cm (legs)
South Australian Government Grant 2002
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
© Fiona Hall
detail: Fiona Hall
Australia, born 1953
Cell culture
2002, Adelaide
glass, silver, plastic, vitrine (wood, glass)
157.0 x 247.0 x 90.0 cm (vitrine)
44.8 cm (legs)
South Australian Government Grant 2002
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
© Fiona Hall
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