Gubba Up investigates the destruction of Aboriginal culture by covering up blak skin. Jackets and coats were significant objects during the earliest encounters between First Nations peoples and the First Fleet. Drawing upon the histories of these garments reveals the impact of colonialism and what Indigenous people fought against to maintain their identity today. While gifted to Aboriginal men, these jackets were a way to cover the naked bodies of savages in this new land. To be naked was to be savage.
‘Gubba' loosely translates to ‘white'. To gubba up is to whiten up; to whiten up is to cover up. These and other systemic incursions are continual forms of the colonial regime imposed over Aboriginal land and people, and for Kyra Mancktelow, a key component of her ongoing investigation into garments and their unwritten histories.
Here, clothing was a weapon of coercion in the colonising process, forced upon naked Aboriginal people in order to civilise and subdue them. Those who chose to wear clothes did so only for ‘expedience, a desire to please, or merely as imitation’, and were savagely lampooned by domineering settler forces for their trouble.
Kyra’s practice is research-led, with the aim to enlighten her audience with a history that wasn’t taught. ‘There’s a lack of understanding white Australia may have today as to why we fight so hard to be acknowledged, recognised, and want truth telling to be heard.’
Following on from Kyra’s ground-breaking body of work Moongalba, Gubba Up investigates colonial garments and uniforms and how they were used as a tool to assimilate and gubba up Aboriginal identity. Using Grace Karsens’ research into the gifting of military jackets to First Nations peoples, Kyra referenced colonial paintings from 1810-20 where Aboriginal men were depicted in ill-fitting jackets and coats, most notably, the 1819 watercolour ‘Sauvages de la Nouvelle Galles du Sud’ attributed to Alphonse Pellion.
Kyra’s multi-faceted series serve as starting point for her audience to learn more about the history of Australian colonial garments and their impact of Indigenous culture. The jackets worn by warriors have not survived, the artefacts are absent. It is not possible to see or touch the real fabric, study the colour, cut, stitching, buttons, piping, braid, the tears and stains. These coats and jackets are ghost artefacts, recorded only in the paintings and words of colonial power, and then often conveyed through thick lenses of ridicule, revulsion or pity.
While these jackets and coats are long gone, Kyra’s work will remain.
