In Conversation: Larissa Behrendt and Fiona Foley

Finding Eliza examines the story of Eliza Fraser, who was purportedly captured by the Butchulla people in 1836 after surviving the shipwreck of the Stirling Castle. Her highly publicised account was mythologised in colonial culture and cast Butchulla people as figures of fear and savagery, legitimising their dispossession and massacre.

The exhibition marks the ten-year anniversary of the publication of Finding Eliza: Power and Colonial Storytelling by Larissa Behrendt and gives context to the 2023 return of Fraser Island to its traditional name, K’gari—meaning paradise.

Bringing together two leading cultural voices, this unmissable discussion will reflect on the impact of colonial storytelling on Butchulla people and Indigenous people across the continent, asking whose stories were believed, whose were ignored, and why.

Drawing on Foley and Behrendt’s extensive output—spanning visual art, filmmaking and writing—this conversation offers a timely reflection on truth-telling, cultural memory and reclamation on Butchulla Country.

Saturday 30 May, 10:30 - 11:30am