There are three deaths:

The first is when the body ceases to function.

The second is when the body is consigned to the grave.

The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.

Lament of the Labellum – Transgression by Sarah Elson 2016 (Stephanie Lloyd Smith)

Adding Absence by Helen Seiver, 2016 (Stephanie Lloyd Smith)

If you can, (it requires courage), please watch this documentary about the babies lost to infanticide in our Colonial past. It is incredibly moving and such important work…that we bear witness to these small souls and the mothers that suffered so. Through Dr Amanda Gardiner’s exhibition “The Spaces Between Us” via the exquisite work of the artists involved, we can give these banished and discarded souls life and let them know we have not forgotten. Congratulations to all those involved for the deep and painful journey you have undertaken and the profound artwork you have produced and to Dr Gardiner for her deeply wrought and courageous research  on behalf of these mothers and babies.

Dr Gardiner and two of the artist were also interviewed on Radio National.

I know this is a taboo subject but these women and the babies were victims of a patriarchal society, a society that silenced and gave no choice and no voice to these judged and ostracized souls.  Dr Gardiner and all the artists involved have brought to light (in the language of the soul beyond words) a forgotten, painful and shameful period in Western Australian history that has resonance with so many communities and peoples around the world as this research exposes a problem we still have yet to come to terms with in the 21st century.