Memorial landscapes, recognition, and marginalisation: a critical assessment of Adelaide's ‘cultural heart’

Abstract

Memorial landscapes are powerfully instructive. Cast in bronze or carved in stone, memorials speak to us of who and what we should admire and those characteristics we should aspire to emulate. As such, memorial landscapes are texts. However, memorial landscapes are equally about remembering and forgetting. Drawing upon a critical examination of the memorial landscape of Adelaide’s cultural precinct this paper examines ongoing silences regarding Indigenous pre-history, the processes and impacts of British colonisation, and how these are remembered and/or silenced within this place. Framed by post-colonial literature, this paper reveals that notwithstanding movements towards reconciliation in Australia, Adelaide’s cultural precinct firmly remains a settler landscape. Those few memorials raised to or acknowledging Indigenous people are pushed to the margins, poorly maintained, or framed through service to the Empire.