Drawing upon ‘zine culture and DIY aesthetics, this artist book is a remembrance of the artists’ Grandma and a continuation of matrilineal, intergenerational, and trans-oceanic hxstories.
The ‘zine is not a monolith, but rather, a fragment built upon fragments. It is a conversation about place/sovereignty, love/grief, and collective/contested memory.
Through archival research and an autobiography entrusted to the artist by their Grandma, the ‘zine traces back to her first Nonna, Giacomina Tenni (née Zucchetti). In 1891 after months at sea, Giacomina and her 15 year old daughter Maria Tenni (artists’ Great Great Grandmother) arrived on passenger ship Jelunga. Giacomina grew and sold coffee in the hinterlands of Gimuy (Cairns, Far North Queensland) as a means of subsistence.
While a tombstone is the only surviving object of the artist’s first Italian descendants, a collection of photographs portray the complex nostalgia of colonial society. The artist’s Great Grandparents’ coupling suggests the compatibility of Italian and Irish Catholicism and immigrant communities.
The ‘zine reflects on matrilineal wealth across five generations of descendants and the contradictions in relationships. It carefully distills autobiographical references to First Peoples, with “pools hewn from the rocks” suggesting Indigenous engineering near Yarraman/Bunya Mountains. There is also reference to armed resistance to workers camps on railways in Far North Queensland.
