Position Doubtful: mapping landscapes and memories

Imagine the document you have before you is not a book but a
map. It is well-used, creased, and folded, so that when you open it, no
matter how carefully, something tears and a line that is neither
latitude nor longitude opens in the hidden geography of the place you
are about to enter.

Since the publication of her prize-winning memoir Craft for a Dry Lake
in 2000, writer and artist Kim Mahood has been returning to the Tanami
desert country in far north-western Australia where, as a child, she
lived with her family on a remote cattle station. The land is timeless,
but much has changed: the station has been handed back to its
traditional owners; the mining companies have arrived; and Indigenous
art has flourished.

Comedy and tragedy, familiarity and uncertainty, are Mahood’s
constant companions as she immerses herself in the life of a small
community and in groundbreaking mapping projects. What
emerges in Position Doubtful is a revelation of the significance of the land to its people - and of the burden of history.

Mahood is an artist of astonishing versatility. She works with words,
with paint, with installations, and with performance art. Her writing
about her own work and collaborations, and
about the work of the desert artists, is profoundly enlightening, making
palpable the link between artist and landscape.

This is a beautiful and intense exploration of friendships, landscape, and homecoming. Written with great energy and humour, Position Doubtful offers a unique portrait of the complexities of black and white relations in contemporary Australia.