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... When it came to commissioning The Aboriginal memorial, 1987-88, I was coming back through Sydney and curator Bernice Murphy said to talk to Nick because he was the director of the 1988 biennale. I had this concept in my head so I went to talk to him. It was the Bicentenary of Australia and everyone was doing 200-this, 200-that, and trying to rationalise or draw a progression or an enrichment over that period, which was a good thing. Aboriginal people were boycotting Bicentenary events, so I had to think about that quite a bit, but then I had this idea to have an installation of 200 burial poles. With all my ideas I try and talk them through, and eventually I came to talk this one through with Nick. Someone once told me that if people don't get your ideas you shouldn't waste time on them, but the thing that struck me about Nick was how he was able to see it. He could see it physically and conceptually.

The number 200 was the central concept around which to build the installation, and then we developed this idea about what the colonisation of Australia meant to Aboriginal people: 200 years of death and destruction. This wasn't a celebration for us. It was a time to reflect on all the people who had died defending the country since 1788. We wanted to seriously ruminate on our history rather than just have a big party to celebrate everything. There's still a lot of work to be done in the nation. There's a lot of unfinished business and things that can be done within the society plus interpersonally to make the country a better place to live in and to make us happier as people, as a community and as a society.

In retrospect it was a very heavy political statement to make if you think about it, and the biennale was still a very conservative western art site in a sense. And Nick taking that in was a very bold statement. In the catalogue he said that it was the single most important work in the biennale. That resonated with me. It was a very powerful statement of support. And I think The Aboriginal memorial has weathered the storm in a certain way; it really withstands the mark of time...

This article appears in excerpted form. You can read the entire article in Art & Australia's Winter 2010 issue.