Yhonnie Scarce was born in Woomera, South Australia, and belongs to the Kokatha and Nukunu peoples. Her interdisciplinary practice explores the political nature and aesthetic qualities of glass and photography. Her work often references the ongoing effects of colonisation on Aboriginal people; in particular, her research has explored the impact of the removal and relocation of Aboriginal people from their homelands and the forcible removal of Aboriginal children from their families. Family history is central to Scarce’s work; drawing on the strength of her ancestors, she offers herself as a conduit, sharing their significant stories from the past.

In "Not Willing to Suffocate", Yhonnie Scarce breathes her sculptural glass objects into the form of bush bananas, representative of her people, the Kokatha, Nukunu and Mirning peoples from the Nullarbour Plain and Great Australian Bight regions in the west of South Australia. In rendering this soft and delicate fruit in this more resilient of materials, Yhonnie conveys that despite suffering under the tight grip of European occupation and the colonialising of their land and culture, her people have resisted and survived, even when pressured to near breaking point. By incorporating the scientific apparatus, Yhonnie also reflects on the extensive and humiliating ethnological research Aboriginal people were subjected to throughout the 1920s and 1930s that formed part of this suffering.

Printed with iron-oxide pigment, signifying dried blood and the surrounding landscape rich in iron-ore, "Koonibba, South Australia” (2023) reflects on the introduction of Christian Missions in South Australia.

“Situated approximately 40 kilometres west of Ceduna and 800 kilometres northwest of Adelaide, the Koonibba Mission is the birthplace of my Grandfather, Barwell Coleman.

For many years, I have returned to the Koonibba and Point Pearce Mission sites. Through these visits, I have become obsessed with the structures that endure in these communities. I find myself studying the bricks, crucifixes, and bells that sit outside each building.

This compulsion stems from the knowledge of the detrimental effect they had on my extended family – enduring loss of language and culture, illness, and slave labour.”

Yhonnie Scarce appears courtesy of This is No Fantasy, Melbourne