Anja Loughhead
‘The Australian Screen’
2015
Duration 4mins and 15secs
‘The Australian Screen’ is a video piece by Canberra based artist Anja Loughhead. A component of a mixed media body of work titled ‘Populate or Perish!’, this series explores the history of the Bonegilla Migrant Training and Reception Centre, previously active in Wodonga, Victoria from 1947 – 1971. A processing site utilised during the infamous White Australia Policy, the Bonegilla Migrant Centre drew public attention in the media as a result of riots, infant illness and child mortality. With a dry sense of humour, Loughhead’s video piece is a never-ending sneer at the means in which Australia continues to record and transmit immigration policy through the media.
