Natalie Harkin
Weaving Blankets of Story and Hearts of Gold: An Archival-poetics Praxis
My dad was diagnosed with lung cancer on his fifty-ninth birthday and after a fierce battle with his body and mind, he died two years later. In the face of all odds, he maintained optimism and hope. He could never accept the inevitable, and in the words of Dylan Thomas, he did indeed rage against the dying of the light. His courage, dignity and will shone bright until the very end.
On the first of many anniversaries after dad died, his birthday felt like the right time to begin weaving a basket from a selection of letters from the State’s Aborigines Protection Board and Children’s Welfare Board files, handwritten by my nanna and great-grandmother: a small contemplation on mourning, family history and the colonial archive, and the heart of my research at the time.
Archival-Poetics
The opening pages of Natalie Harkin’s Archival-Poetics can be read online at the Vagabond Press website as a flipbook. It is a startling and resonant work of art and activism.