Nadia Rhook

Second Fleet Baby Nadia Rhook

Second Fleet Baby examines birth and motherhood, drawing on the playful energies and powers of 18th and 19th century convict chicks, including Rhooks own ancestor, who was transported from England to Eora land on the Lady Juliana as part of the notorious 1789 Second Fleet.

How might a settler reconcile the violence bound up with their role populating stolen land with the love and euphoria that can flow from parenthood? Intergenerational ties are traced through the soft weapons of the body, connecting the intimacies of nation-making with the politics of reproduction in lavishly personal ways.