You Are, Here Now

Megan Cope’s large scale commission You Are, Here Now, on the facade of the Australian Catholic University is a series of large scale maps. The work investigates issues around history, identity, the environment and mapping practices, probing myths and methodologies around colonisation. 

Maps feature prominently with Cope drawing on mapping practices and toponymy (the study of place names) to challenge ordinary Australian's ideas of ownership of land. Toponomy and place names are an important aspect of culture and identity as they provide a location where events, landscapes and people are remembered, celebrated and most importantly, continued. Place names are often indicators of the dominant culture and current economic beneficiaries within a geopolitical landscape. Cope often draws on military and geological maps of the 1800’s that depict the land devoid of Aboriginal occupation, echoing the myth of terra nullius. 

 In Cope’s work the maps are appropriated and repurposed with names and places significant to Aboriginal groups written back into the landscape. Transposed with names and places significant to Aboriginal groups, her updated maps reveal multilayered landscapes, multiple histories and the legacy of colonialism on a traumatised landscape. 

You Are, Here Now spans the corner of Victoria Parade and Brunswick St in Fitzroy in Melbourne's inner city. The work uses geological maps of the 1800’s, presenting localities familiar to residents of Melbourne and culturally diverse and distinct regions in Melbourne’s cultural landscape including Footscray, St Kilda, Port Melbourne and the inner city region. Aboriginal people and place names are superimposed over colonised geographical spaces and a sea level rise of approximately 5 metres is included. Visitors to the building and the general public are able to locate themselves within the artwork and have the opportunity to observe the current landscape as it were several generations ago as well as read the Aboriginal language sung and spoken in the same space for thousands of years.The work invites people to situate and see themselves in the space and reflect on the continual change of the urban and social environment.

The project was undertaken with the assistance of Independent Arts Management (iAM).