PhD Media, Images and Links
The Museum of the Lost and Found tells true stories of how ten adult adoptees’ reflect on matters of self, brought about through connection to a significant place they have discovered, visited or sensed, in their search for identity and belonging. My creative practice research that has resulted in the production of the Museum has investigated how to write about infant adoption in Australia. The project’s title encapsulates the loss of identity, heritage and connection that results when children are adopted, contrasted with that which they find in their musings and discoveries of matters hidden from plain sight. It also captures the multi-faceted research that I have undertaken about infant adoption that has resulted in essays comprising the creative and exegetical, including a number of 3D artefacts that are an integral part of the essays.
In the museum there is a history of adoption, most of it lost to Australian mainstream and feminist histories; there are insights into the nexus between the church and the state that resulted in so many children being taken from their heritage; there are layers of language and meaning; and last but not least, there are the voices of ten adoptees describing what it is they have lost and then found. Admission to the Museum is free and I welcome you in.
These pages provide links to the thesis, incorporating video, sound and image components of the research.