Present Encounters : Papers from the conference of the Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, 1996

Wong Hoy Cheong (Session Commentator) I 've been looki ng at the theme for this afternoon - 'History , Memory and Voyages' - and was a bit perplexed and distu rbed by this theme. First I asked myself, "Who makes history? Who has memory? Who is privileged enough to make a voyage?" Then I realised that the theme is actually linked to the whole modernist Western idea of progress, if I may borrow from the h istorian Robin Nesbitt, and the whole idea that these themes are linked to the privileged class. Only the dominant classes have the chance of h istory. We sti ll think that tribal people don't have histories. They have lived like that for thousands of years. But we the civilised , the privileged , have histories we have changed from one stage to another, we have progressed and thus we have h istory. Who has memory? The privileged classes have memory. We record history , we have traditions, we have books. We have family histories. The oppressed often lose memories. For example, if you suffer through a traumatic experience, are a sexually abused person , or a person who has survived a concentration camp or torture , you often lose memories and have amnesia. So the oppressed often do not have memories either. And who makes voyages? The colon isers make voyages. The great civilisations make voyages. The Ming Dynasty made a lot of voyages. But the oppressed do not make voyages - they make retreats. The American I ndians retreated as the voyagers approached . So as we think of ourselves here in terms of talki ng about the idea of progress, let's not forget the idea that there are people without histories, there are people without memories, there are people without voyages. Not that they did not have them, but those histories, memories and voyages are marginalised because of the whole idea of progress emanates from the dominant classes or the privileged classes. 8 1