The tacit semantics of ‘Loud Fences’: tracing the connections between activism, heritage and new histories

Abstract

In 2015, in response to harrowing accounts of child sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy in the town of Ballarat, a campaign of public support was launched in the form of coloured ribbons attached to the fences of institutions where the abuse had occurred. The “Loud Fence” campaign has become a global form of protest and commemoration. Institutions’ reactions were varied; some removed the ribbons, to find them promptly replaced, with attendant publicity. Thus was established a silent dialogue that encapsulated the contested nature of the ribbons’ symbolism, and exemplified, too, the campaign’s disparate implied audiences. The paper discusses the meanings of the Loud Fences in relation to divided community sensibilities and intangible heritage, as a performative mode of activism and of heritage-making. It considers ways in which the campaign challenges institutional cultures that stand as extant remnants of colonialism and as edifices of iconic institutional power. The Loud Fences campaign is characterised as a grass-roots quest, initially intended to show solidarity with disenfranchised victims of abuse, that has come to be seen as giving them a symbolic “voice” in the face of institutional denial. The paper touches upon the ways in which such campaigns, based on visual symbols and contested, yet unspoken, “dialogue”, can be historicised.