Informit article: Connell turns South

The wheel spins once more for the Global South

There was a raffle wheel at the entrance to the exhibition ‘Turn the Soil’. Rather than numbers, the nails around the rim were adorned with flags. Each flag represented an alternative colonisation of Australia. Instead of the Union Jack in the left hand corner, there were rising suns, stars and stripes and the Indigenous black, red and yellow. The idea was to reflect on the contingent nature of Australia’s history. But it didn’t turn out so. At the exhibition opening, a peculiar scene developed around this wheel. Like gamblers, the group were cheering for their favourites to be selected. By far the largest roar was for the tricolour – if only Australia had been colonised by France!