This book presents selected works from Presley’s acclaimed Blood Money series, which features the heroes and warriors of Indigenous history as figureheads on Australian banknotes, alongside documentation of the recent Prosperity exhibition at the IMA. The book includes a chapter by Ryan Presley on the history of the Australian colony’s first currency, the holey dollar, alongside contributions by Tina Baum, Daniel Browning, and Suvendrini Perera that explore different manifestations of currency as a tool of the colonial project.
In her contribution, ‘Counter(feit) Sovereignties’, Suvendrini Perera discusses Ryan Presley’s intricately designed Blood Money Dollars as artefects of counter-sovereignty, akin to the Aboriginal passports issued by Uncle Ray Jackson and Uncle Robbie Thorpe.
Ryan Presley, Terror Island Wish You Were Here
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