ABSTRACT
A great many Stolen Generation testimonies document Indigenous children’s memories of being forcibly bundled into the back of a big black official car. They record heart-wrenching memories of confusion and terror, of last glimpses of distraught family left behind. This chapter considers artist Reko Rennie’s very personal response to, indeed re-documentation of, those painful narratives through his 3-channel video installation OA_RR. In this installation, Rennie documents a road trip taken by him in an immaculate Rolls Royce Corniche from his home in Melbourne to his Kamilaroi country in northern New South Wales and back again. This Rolls Royce Corniche is a document that has been inscribed by Rennie. It speaks of British colonial privilege, of royalty, power, comfort and of wealthy pastoralists luxuriously cocooned from the environment. Carried in state inside that royal car is yet another document. Mounted on the lacquered walnut dashboard is a humble snapshot of Rennie as a child with his beloved Nan, Julia, who was stolen from her family and placed in a mission, where she was enslaved and trained as a domestic servant to white families. This chapter considers Rennie’s ritualised performance of the humanity of his Nan, indeed her royal credentials. He returns her—returns with her—to their country, in the style that her sovereign status demands.
