Humpy: An early Australian Architectural Projection

Abstract

In Australia’s Bicentennial year 1988, which marked 200 years of European colonisation, an important artistic collaboration occurred between Ian de Gruchy and Krzysztof Wodiczko. Their site specific installation Humpy commented on the ongoing politics of Indigenous dispossession and loss of place. They are artists who helped to develop the practice of projecting large-scale images onto architecture. While the work was critically ignored at the time, it has become increasingly relevant as historians, architects and artists research and reference Indigenous architectural forms. The ongoing currency of the artist’s political commentary on Indigenous loss of place is another important element of the work’s continuing resonance.