The Crimson Thread investigates the ubiquitous presence of Australia’s British heritage through the lens of Queen Elizabeth II’s Royal Tour of Australia in 1954. Using speculative documentary photography, the project retraces the Queen’s tour to document what the contemporary settler society in Australia looks like today, and its continuing connection to the British monarchy. By highlighting the ways in which our ongoing celebration of colonial history sustains white privilege, The Crimson Thread invites viewers to question official histories and to consider how strongly our past still exists in the present. The work includes archival material from 1954 newspapers and magazines covering the Royal Tour, alongside twentieth-century propaganda reflecting how Australia became a colonial federation and how the White Australia policies and its imagery promoted this vision and shaped ideas of a white national identity. The title is taken from a quote by Henry Parkes, a British-born colonial politician who described Australia’s connection to the British Motherland as “the crimson thread of kinship, which defines Australia as a bastion of ‘whiteness’ in the Asian region”.
