2020 NLA Fellowship Presentation The eastern isle: Norfolk Island in colonial art and writings

The colonial heritage of Norfolk Island is little known to most Australians. 2020 NLA Fellow, Alisa Bunbury’s recent research comprises a careful and structured examination of visual imagery created during the various stages of its settlement during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These images show the difficulties of contact and communication with its steep cliffs and dangerous reef; the clearing of the land for agricultural purposes; the indigenous flora and fauna, including rare documentation of species driven to extinction; and the built environment, including the long-demolished first settlement and the later penitentiary buildings, the ruins of which are now World Heritage listed. Written records and recollections complement the visual material, ranging from diaries, letters and naval journals to published accounts of visits, official appointments or the horrendous treatment endured by convicts imprisoned there. Alisa’s research aims to bring the numerous stories of this tiny island to light in time for the 250th anniversary of the Resolution's crew sighting Norfolk Island in 2024.

Alisa Bunbury is the Grimwade Collection Curator at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, responsible for researching, acquiring for, presenting and publishing on the Australiana collection gathered by Sir Russell Grimwade and bequeathed to the University by Sir Russell and Lady Mab Grimwade. Between 2002 and 2017 she was Curator of Prints and Drawings at the National Gallery of Victoria, and prior to that Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs at the Art Gallery of South Australia (1999–2002). Her specialisation is in the art of early colonial Australia, in particular works on paper: drawings, watercolours, prints and illustrated books.