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Short abstract:

This interrogates a storied earth shipped between hemispheres. The clay’s sacred uses by the Darug people of Sydney attracted attention. The vat of clay transported to Joseph Banks in 1790 became the subject of scientific experiments into a new ‘primitive earth’ or ‘terra australis’.

Long abstract:

'Terra Australis' follows the maritime journeys of a vat of clay mined in the 1780s from the lands of the Eora/Darug people of Sydney Cove, Australia, which Josiah Wedgwood transformed into a series of medallions representing a fanciful colonial future. Manufactured in three different hues, Wedgwood invited Erasmus Darwin to write a poem to accompany the design, which was then reproduced in the journal of the inaugural Governor of New South Wales, Arthur Philip, and it also became part of a longer work on botanical gardens. The allegorical figures on the medallion evoked the Greek myth of Pandora and the figure of Hope. This project adopts a deep history approach; by juxtaposing the long geological histories of this 'sacred clay' alongside Indigenous Australian worlds, we can explore the storied deployment of these particular earth samples and their exchange and return between knowledge hemispheres. Banks sent samples to leading scientists across Europe, including Blumenbach, who each experimented with the clay and came to conclusions about the nature of the earth of this distant land, largely unknown to Europe. Via the intimate negotiators of the British Enlightenment's colonial projects, which included measuring, mapping and dividing up this southern earth into lots for distribution to its military men and later to convicted felons, this project aims to expand the ambit of planetary history. The paper will be informed by the work of Elizabeth Grosz and Kathryn Yusoff.