Beneath the Visible: Uncovering the Legacies of Colonial Power and Concealed Landscapes

Yhonnie Scarce, Lisa Radford, David Burns, and Philip Samartzis

6:30-8:30pm, Thursday 23rd October, 2025

Composite and RMIT’s Re-Vision Network present an evening of sound, image and conversation exploring the hidden infrastructures and landscapes shaped by colonial power, nuclear histories and the legacies of extraction. Through creative research, the presenters examine how secrecy and power have inscribed themselves onto both land and memory, tracing connections between archival knowledge, subterranean spaces and the enduring impacts of colonial and nuclear practices.

Presenters

Yhonnie Scarce is a Kokatha and Nukunu artist born in Woomera, South Australia. Her interdisciplinary practice explores the political and aesthetic dimensions of glass and photography, often reflecting on the ongoing effects of colonisation on Aboriginal people. Scarce’s work engages deeply with family history and ancestral stories, offering a conduit through which past and present connect. Her research has examined the removal and relocation of Aboriginal communities, as well as the forcible removal of children, highlighting the generational impacts of these histories. Scarce’s installations address the contested colonial history of Australia through the materiality and politics of glass. She has been active as an artist since completing her first degree in 2003 and teaches at the Centre of Visual Art in the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne

Lisa Radford’s practice spans writing, performance, sculpture, and installation, focusing on the socio-political relationships between images, place, and people. Since 2008, she has collaborated with Sam George to explore oral histories, shared narratives, and coded forms of communication. Her evolving project Concrete Archives documents the experiences of two women, Aboriginal artist Yhonnie Scarce and Radford herself, through fieldwork at local and international sites of nuclear colonisation, genocide and memorialisation. This work has resulted in editorial projects for Art + Australia Online and a major curatorial project debuting at ACE Open (Adelaide) and later presented at VCA (Melbourne). Concrete Archives examines cultural amnesia surrounding the genocide of Aboriginal people and reflects on its ongoing impact on shared experiences, conflict and citizenship.

David Burns’ research investigates the role of media in the historiographies of sites of nuclear colonialism. His practice encompasses photography, site-specific sculpture, spatial intervention, curation, and convening. For two decades, he has led transdisciplinary curricula in art, architecture, and design across the UK, Australia, and the USA. He is currently Senior Tutor (Research) and Lead for Media Studies at the Royal College of Art School of Architecture. From 2010 to 2016, he was inaugural Director of Photography and Situated Media at the University of Technology Sydney and is co-founder of the N curatorial collective and the Fiction Feeling Frame research collective.

Philip Samartzis is a sound artist, scholar, and curator whose work focuses on the social and environmental conditions of remote wilderness regions and communities. His 'eco-acoustic' practice is grounded in fieldwork using sensitive recording devices to capture phenomena at the edges of human and ecological experience. Combining technology, science, music and art, his work uncovers environmental and political dynamics within concealed or hard-to-access sites, revealing the intricate relationships between landscape, infrastructure and power. Samartzis has performed and exhibited widely, including at institutions such as The Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art in Paris, The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Victoria.

This event is hosted by RMIT’s Re-Vision: Ethical Futures Moving Image Network and Composite.