Artist: John Mateer
Work: The Quiet Slave (2013-14)
Location: Cocos (Keeling) Islands
The Quiet Slave is an installation and research project realised as a historically accurate fiction set on the Indian Ocean islands during the early 19th century.
It describes the first years of settlement on the Cocos-Keeling Islands, located between Perth and Sri Lanka, through the eyes of Rosie, a female Malay slave belonging to the controversial Englishman Alexander Hare. Uncovering the origins of the Malay community of the Cocos-Keeling Islands, the project restores a sense of its place both in the history of the South-East Asian slave trade and in the British Empire.
The Quiet Slave reminds us that language, as much in the fading material of its script, as in its quiet narrative, is the basis of community and history.
