Legal Fiction

Legal Fiction explores the creation of a white society in Australia, combining stark imagery with archival material to highlight the impact of medical and social scientists' obsession throughout the 20th century to “protect” the white race.

Legal Fiction is a photographic project exploring the creation and considered cultivation of a white society in Australia, blurring the lines between contemporary and archival imagery to remind viewers of the ongoing impacts. The work explores white privilege, public symbolism and the 20th-century obsession of medical and social scientists to “protect” the white race. The title is a reference to terra nullius - meaning land belonging to no one - which was the legal fiction used by the British to annex the continent without reference to its inhabitants in 1788.  

The project employs stark imagery frequently captured at night with strong flash, to illuminate the dominance of whiteness which often goes unnoticed in Australian society, revealing a fixed sense of entitlement and supremacy. Archival material further exposes the troubling fixation on protecting the white race from racial degeneration through medical experiments, the red faces bring these fears to life and are a representation of white culture in Australia today. While the red imagery of native vegetation reflects the colonial mindset that their strange, new environment was another opponent to overcome.

Legal Fiction aims to provoke reflection on systemic elitism and privilege in Australia by exploring the environment, public spaces, mindsets and history.