In the Absence of

'In the Absence of,’ choreographed by Baden Hitchcock and performed at Yirramboi Festival (2017), Melbourne, was an experimental public space performance piece, the work asked the general public to hold a pose from the fresco, 'Howitt's Rescue of King'. This fresco is one of a series of four, around the base of the Burke and Wills Statue just next to Melbourne's City Square. Whilst in the pose they were asked to listen to an audial experience attempting to shift the Burke and Wills story, highlighting the complexities of decolonising a heavily western architectural space.
In this test Baden explored the lack of representation of the Boonwurrung and Woi Wurrung language groups along the main streets of Melbourne. "I focused on the glorified Burke and Wills statue which depicts the expedition of the supposed first 'men' to cross the 'great continent of Australia’.Questions arose of why there was no attempt for Melbourne to become bilingual in the sense of there being a stronger presence of the local languages throughout the CBD.”

With the help of five facilitators Baden developed a shared vocabulary to introduce and ask the general public to participate in the test. This was an attempt to create a live version of the fresco parallel to it that would be in a constant flux due to the nature of the task and length of the podcast.