Entangled Extinctions and Cultural Resurgence

Several kelp species grow in the underwater forests that surround the coast of lutruwita/Tasmania. These underwater environments provide crucial habitat for local marine life that is under rising pressure to survive the warming and acidifying southern waters. The work of artists Lucienne Rickard and Mandy Quadrio tends to the entanglement of extinction as they address the aftermath of colonisation in lutruwita/Tasmania and its effects on current marine and island life including that of surviving kelp and handfish species. The notion of extinction becomes more complex when analysed from the perspective of Tasmanian Aboriginal history and contemporary cultural resurgence. Bull kelp has a long history of significance as the material used in lutruwita/Tasmanian Aboriginal cultural and artistic objects such as baskets to carry water, and its potential loss could have far-reaching cultural consequences. The history of the extinction of the Thylacine and proliferation of harmful and erroneous Tasmanian Aboriginal extinction myths complicate the notion of extinction. Practising memorial culture via the creative arts, this chapter examines kelp and handfish memories and the reshaping of extinction as narrative in the work of Rickard and Quadrio.