My early conversations with Tom Nicholson and the potential for collaboration began in Santiago, Chile. We talked about a mutual fascination with a Melbourne’s Royal Park – a place of historical contestation containing infinite layers of narrative. We love the park because, although it has been home to many state-run institutions, some with dubious histories, it also contains stories we felt obliged to engage with. Tom is an artist with a social conscience and a commitment to communal engagement. He holds what may appear to some to be an outmoded political energy for collectivism. It is what drew me to him. It is why I wanted us to work together. Our collaborations began over a chat and a coffee, followed by a few dinners, the occasional walk through the park, and eventually a clear sense that we wanted to do something together. We sometimes sit in a small coffee shop in Melbourne’s Brunswick, La Paloma. The talk from other customers centres on European football. We don’t mind as we also meander between conversations around sport, literature, politics, Indigenous Rights and occasionally art. When Tom produced his project – Nardoo Flag (Red Wedge) – I was immediately reminded of William Barak, the Wurundjeri artist and intellectual of the nineteenth century and his knowledge of the colour red and its multifaceted translation – Ngamajet – which relates the human form and particular spiritual landscapes, the setting of the sun, death and rebirth. And so, when I see the Red Wedge in Royal Park, set against a sky and sun about to go down for the day I know we, Tom and I, and all of us are here.
Tony Birch
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