Yhonnie Scarce

Remembering Royalty
ACCA 2018, MCA and Tate

Remember Royalty is a large installation by Yhonnie Scarce comprising four suspended portraits and three accompanying sculptures, arranged to evoke a kind of shrine.
The black-and-white photographic images are drawn from family archives and depict Scarce’s great-great grandmother Melba c.1917; her great-great grandfather William c.1920 (Melba’s husband); her grandmother Fanny c.1950; and other family members in a group portrait taken at the Koonibba Mission c.1911, where they lived under duress. Each image has been radically enlarged and screen-printed onto a sheet or blanket of roughly the same vintage as the original photographs. Scarce has then paired the portraits with offerings in the form of hand-blown glass objects and found items.