- 2 days ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00I was living in America when 9-11 exploded the world as we knew it.
00:15America's response was swift.
00:18And just weeks later, Australian forces also headed to Afghanistan,
00:25joining the war on terror.
00:27Overt operations shrouded the war in secrecy, and it lasted almost 20 years.
00:38But more than a decade into the conflict, it was one of Australia's official war artists, Ben Quilty,
00:44who laid bare the hidden truth of the price of our war in Afghanistan.
00:51And that was just the start of a national reckoning
00:54with what really happens when the war is over.
01:02I'm Rachel Griffiths, and I believe that when it comes to understanding war,
01:09art is our secret weapon.
01:11So in this series, I'm putting this theory to the test, one war and one artwork at a time.
01:19Because, well, journalists tell us what happened.
01:25They left in scenes that are now part of television's history.
01:28It's our performers.
01:30When the song was released, it was banned.
01:32Yeah.
01:34Filmmakers.
01:35Peter Weir from Pinnacle.
01:37Writers.
01:38The narrow road to the deep north.
01:40Artists.
01:41I was the only one not carrying a weapon.
01:44And musicians.
01:45If it's too risky to say, sing it.
01:48Who help us make sense of it.
01:51Holy...
01:53This is incredible.
01:58Art's not just there to be pretty and admired.
02:00Art is the magnifying glass and the mirror.
02:02This was a pub rock song that changed our lives.
02:06That's what art can do.
02:09This is when the war is over.
02:32Beauty and pain are old bedfellows when it comes to art.
02:47Wow.
02:48Well, I have to say, this is a brand new experience for me.
02:52I've looked at a lot of art.
02:54But this is, the skin is the canvas.
02:56Yes.
02:57You're the canvas.
02:58And you get to wear it all the time.
03:00Adam Maguire is a man who wears his heart and his art on his sleeve.
03:07Here we go, the big reveal.
03:09A veteran of over 28 years.
03:12The war in Afghanistan was his final deployment.
03:15Holy shit.
03:19This is...
03:21This is incredible.
03:23Can I say, this is an excellent use of love handles.
03:26Yes.
03:27Because these poppies have a beautiful three-dimensional quality.
03:33Among his tapestry of tattoos that tell stories about his and his family's decades of service,
03:41there's a tattoo for a mate who's close to his heart.
03:44There's just something special about Davey.
03:49He was a reservist when I did my first deployment in 2006.
03:53He was dead set, I'm joining the regular army.
03:56And we tried to hold him off, but he went over to Afghan.
04:00They were out doing a patrol and he ran over a very large IED.
04:04And another comeback.
04:07How long was he in Afghanistan before he...
04:13Not long at all.
04:15I think it was probably a month.
04:17Oh my God.
04:19How'd you find out?
04:20I got a phone call, Sarge, I think Davey's dead.
04:26And I was like, nah, I spoke to him yesterday.
04:32You got a tattoo for him, right?
04:34Yeah, that's in my middle of my chest here.
04:36In the actual cross, it's got RAP Davey.
04:38Burdened by the loss of his mate in service, Adam chose to redeploy to Afghanistan in 2012.
04:47I couldn't say no to going to Afghan because your mates all go and some don't come back,
04:53so you just sort of can't say no.
05:06When Australia joined the US-led war on terror in Afghanistan,
05:10the mission was to hunt Osama bin Laden, defeat his Al-Qaeda terrorists,
05:17and overthrow the Taliban who harbored them.
05:24Over nearly two decades, there were almost 40,000 Australian troops deployed.
05:30Around 170,000 Afghans died in the war.
05:34America lost almost 2,500 soldiers.
05:41And while 41 Australians were killed in combat,
05:45at home, a far bigger toll was yet to come.
05:53You got a poppy for every Australian that died in Afghanistan.
05:57Now you're seeing a lot more veterans with the tattoos,
06:04and I think that it helps.
06:07That's becoming known as form of therapy.
06:10I would say, yeah.
06:12The pain of getting a tattoo realistically lets you know you're alive.
06:16I mean, some people write journals and keep journals.
06:18My journal's in ink.
06:20It feels right to put it into images.
06:22Yeah.
06:30The hundreds of years, the stories of war and the art that tells those stories
06:35was largely populated with heroes and battles.
06:38There's generals on horses, flags above the battlement,
06:42nameless soldiers fallen in noble sacrifice.
06:45But the art of our most recent war in Afghanistan is so different.
06:53It's visceral, it's immediate, and it punches you in the gut.
06:58It is very, very personal.
07:01I took no paint to Afghanistan.
07:11I made lots and lots of film and took lots and lots of photographs
07:15and a pot of ink, and I thought that would lead to telling the story.
07:19The risk and the fear and the trauma and the danger of being there.
07:22In 2011, Ben Quilty was a celebrated and highly collected artist.
07:27And when he won the nation's most coveted art prize, his fame hit new heights.
07:32The 2011 Archibald Prize is awarded to Ben Quilty for Margaret Olly.
07:39That same year, the Australian War Memorial commissioned him
07:45as the official war artist to Afghanistan.
07:51I went in there pretty naive.
07:54I was the only one not carrying a weapon,
07:58which is an unusual feeling to be there unarmed in a war zone.
08:06Every single emotion was extreme and heightened,
08:10partly because you're living under this constant anxiety
08:12that you can be killed.
08:15And it was like nothing I'd ever seen
08:17and nothing I want to see again.
08:18I don't want to go back, that's for sure.
08:20Ben Quilty was following in the footsteps
08:23of a long line of official war artists
08:26whose role was to capture our troops at the coalface of conflict.
08:33The official war artist can be as political or as anti-war
08:37or as pro-war as they want.
08:39And that's a rare privilege, I think.
08:42Given the environment was special forces, is there a suspicion?
08:46Very suspicious.
08:48What's this artist doing here, this lefty?
08:50They didn't know who I was, they didn't know why I was there.
08:54Making a drawing of someone is very disarming
08:58because the person who's making the drawing has to opt out of the dialogue.
09:01They were very, very reticent to talk to me because it had been drilled into them.
09:09Do not talk to the media, never ever talk to the media.
09:12I had no idea who this guy was.
09:18We have to be careful in what we say here, that's what we're thinking, you know.
09:23Are you thinking why do we need an artist in Afghanistan?
09:25Absolutely, it's very strange.
09:28Daniel Spain was one of the youngest ADF personnel on Australia's main base.
09:34And he said, I want to take some photos of you guys doing some weird stuff.
09:38You know, I'm like, right, eh?
09:40So he says, look at the sun, and he took these photos of us.
09:44Ben's aim was to capture the human inside the uniform.
09:51Daniel Spain, he was so young, I was astonished.
09:57I asked him awkwardly when I realised how young he was,
10:01does your mother know what's happening here?
10:04And a huge tear welled in his eye.
10:06That was a real turning point for me,
10:09and that's why I have made that first painting of Daniel when I got back.
10:15I was there to tell the story of the troops.
10:20I felt aware that so many of the young men and women had this extra pressure.
10:25That they were bound by a contract not to speak about their service,
10:30not even to discuss how they felt.
10:32Recognising the crushing nature of this code of silence was a lightbulb moment for Ben.
10:47For me, the biggest story was not the combat zone, but more commonly the emotional wounds.
10:55Putting this thing that you felt and saw and heard into paint.
11:00Tell me, how does that happen?
11:02For me, the skin was everything.
11:04The way the uniform was cut to be boxy, aggressive, masculine.
11:08So I then asked them to strip off and pick a pose.
11:14Captain S was a young officer in Afghanistan.
11:19I asked him to pick a pose and he straight away said,
11:24yes, I know the pose.
11:25And he lay on his back in an unbelievably uncomfortable position.
11:32As we made the work, he told me the story of why that pose was important.
11:40And he said that there was many, many battles,
11:42but this one I remember for the physicality of being stuck on my back for so long.
11:47And they couldn't work out where they were shooting at him from,
11:49and he was with a very young soldier.
11:55And the friend was hit with a bullet which went into his body and didn't come out.
12:02And I said, what did the young man say?
12:05He just kept saying over and over again, I don't want to die.
12:09I don't want to die.
12:20In this painting, I tried to leave as much of the skin blank.
12:24By leaving the skin white, it's like there's a bright light shining on it.
12:28And the light is everything that comes with the threat
12:32and the furious danger of being in a place like that.
12:36By 2013, Ben had painted 21 portraits, laying bare the trauma of return vets.
12:43It's just so vulnerable.
12:59I'm sure when Ben Quilty was on the base,
13:03this was not what the guys would have been expecting that he would come up with.
13:07It's certainly quite different to an official war artists commission, maybe.
13:17It's definitely the cost of war.
13:25Pretty wild.
13:26The show's called After Afghanistan.
13:38Have you seen your painting yet before you turn up at the opening?
13:42No, I hadn't.
13:44And I was talking to someone and they're like,
13:46are you one of the guys that he painted in the nude?
13:49Are you thinking, what, nude?
13:50Yeah, what have I done? Did I forget?
13:51What the hell?
13:52Yeah, what was happening?
13:53Because I didn't, from my memory, I didn't pose nude for Ben Quilty.
14:00Do you think he captured something about you at that time in that painting?
14:07Absolutely.
14:11I was very much down on my luck.
14:14You know, feeling depressed and I was heading down a slippery slope.
14:19Just like...
14:30Are you kind of home before you've processed where you've been?
14:34When I got out, I drank a lot.
14:38So you're not decompressed at all?
14:41No, no.
14:43I scared my kids.
14:47You go to dark places and like...
14:49Because of the transition, when I got out, I was like,
14:53right, are you getting out of the army now?
14:55I was like, no house.
14:57Didn't know where the next dollar was going to come from as such.
14:59In my head, well, if I just write myself off, the wife and kids will get the money a lot quicker.
15:05The timeliness of the official opening and Ben reaching out and it couldn't have come at a better time.
15:19And that needed to happen to be where I am today.
15:23Through all that, Ben became quite an advocate because all his soldiers that he met had been having very similar experiences.
15:37Do you think what he was able to do with that work is an important role to have an artist witness war like that?
15:44I think every facet needs to be looked at.
15:48He's got two there where the body looks normal but the head is just red and that's just like, almost like a pink mist.
15:56You'd say Ben captures the vulnerability of the returning soldier who's not like the photos of yesterday's war hero, right?
16:05No, it doesn't glorify it.
16:07What these paintings do, they put on the table the thing that we won't tell our families.
16:11The things that we won't, for embarrassment or fear or uncertainty of reception, we won't put in front of you as we walk down the street.
16:23A decade later, it wasn't a civilian like Ben Quilty, but a returned vet who continued this important conversation.
16:31And for her, it wasn't just art, it was evidence.
16:35In the army, you were taught loyalty up, loyalty down. So if you serve with diligence and loyalty, they'll look after you.
16:49And it just felt like that contract had been broken after we'd given so much.
16:53Artist Kat Ray served in the Australian military for 20 years with multiple deployments in Afghanistan.
17:03Her husband Andrew also served there.
17:07Andrew, tell me about him coming back after his last deployment.
17:12Well, I didn't realise they'd done a suicide risk assessment on him. And I didn't know. I got a call to say, you'll need to come and collect him from Sydney airport.
17:25With no awareness of what?
17:28No, they threw me like a, I guess a hot potato as far as mental health.
17:31He was in chronic pain. Every part of his body was physically broken. And then there was also the mental health bit.
17:41I guess increasingly, there was domestic violence against me as well, which became more and more dangerous to be around.
17:48In 2017, Andrew died by suicide.
17:59Harnessing her grief and anger, Kat found healing through her creative process.
18:06Oh.
18:07And produced an artwork.
18:09Oh, wow.
18:10That is astonishing.
18:11God.
18:13She called it Deathmin.
18:15Deathmin is the actual paperwork from Andrew, which was his DVA files, his medical files.
18:26It's my height and the weight of Andrew.
18:30He was trying to get all of his claims in for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
18:34What was he asking for?
18:35He was asking for the support that you'd be entitled to, which is rehab and medical attention.
18:41This is, to me, an arguable totem of systemic failure on multiple levels.
18:51It's fragility as well because it has to lean against the wall.
18:54And when you join the army, you're not allowed to lean against the wall.
18:56You're not allowed to have your hands in your pockets or cross your arms.
18:59But this one has to lean against a wall because it will topple and it's kind of defiantly doing so.
19:05How did that stack of paperwork become an artwork?
19:10I've just been keeping all of this paperwork from Andrew and I was trying to discern what to keep and treasure for Imogen and what I really needed to release into a more positive and more powerful way of being and to kind of shed it from us.
19:25The conversation around veteran suicide finally gained national attention.
19:34And in July 2021, a Royal Commission was launched.
19:38Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide is now in session.
19:42Please be seated.
19:44Nearly 6,000 submissions were made, including cat rays, in an effort to find out how our nation had failed our vets.
19:52Defence has been really disappointing. They've still played the old game of cover-up, nothing to see here.
19:57It is them that needs to change.
20:03The Napier Wallop, our prize, which is for people who have served or are currently serving.
20:10You won it for this work. It was in Parliament House.
20:15And this stopped our politicians in their tracks.
20:19I hope it shook things up a little bit.
20:23I mean, there was parts of this artwork which originated in Parliament House and we were petitioning for help.
20:29In September 2024, the Royal Commission released its findings.
20:36They were damning.
20:38We obviously feel that this report should be a line in the sand and a call to action.
20:42You made this during the Royal Commission into Veteran Suicides.
21:00It's such a powerful object for change. Where's the future for this piece of work?
21:17Well, the Governor-General has asked for it to go to her residence.
21:22That would be amazing.
21:23I mean, I would love that to happen.
21:26I hope it comes out of here and can speak to more people and be a reminder to leaders that so many families in Australia need this change.
21:36While affected families were begging the government for action on veteran suicides, the Australian War Memorial was listening.
21:55The result was a radical idea.
21:58We're here today to announce the Sufferings of War and Service sculpture at the Australian War Memorial, which will commemorate those who have experienced or witnessed the ongoing trauma that can result from military service.
22:14There needed to be some acknowledgment of veteran suicide.
22:21There was veterans reporting that they would stand in front of a heroic monument about death in the battlefield and not feel seen at all.
22:28Alex Eaton is a renowned sculptor known for his work in marble.
22:36So this is it.
22:38That's right.
22:39It's very beautiful.
22:40For every drop shed in anguish.
22:47The work consists of 18 large marble droplets, their luminous form suggesting blood, sweat or tears.
22:58So it was commissioned by the mothers whose children had died by suicide or other deaths that one might say is directly attributable to them.
23:10That's absolutely correct.
23:11That's absolutely correct.
23:13The more we know, the more you can't turn a blind eye to the need within the community to feel seen.
23:20This can no longer be just swept under the carpet.
23:22This idea of loss to find out where the tragedy lies.
23:32For me, it was all about choosing a stone that had poetry written into its surface.
23:37Thirty-six tonne, eh?
23:39Yeah, it's a light load.
23:41This is beautiful Queensland marble from the traditional lands of the Wakaman people.
23:47So I was looking through the quarry and they kept showing me this beautiful white version of this, the pearl, the A-grade.
23:53Perfect for the kitchen.
23:54Exactly.
23:55It's like, no, no, what about that stuff up there?
23:56They're like, oh, it's big red.
23:57You don't want that.
23:58I'm like, that's exactly what I want.
24:01I want these that have the scars in them.
24:06Red iron scars become blood-like.
24:10And I think that sort of speaks to those injuries seen and unseen.
24:13And it's the idea that hopefully there's a sense of resilience to them too when you put your hands upon them.
24:25I'm struck by how they could make the intangible pain of grieving families tangible.
24:32And yet somehow feeling them brings a sense of calm.
24:35In this last year since this work has been open, there's been many tributes left around the work.
24:47When the community takes ownership of an artwork, it changes the nature of the work.
24:51And it becomes not just a place, it becomes a site.
24:54It becomes a site specifically to hold those memories.
24:59Now I'd like to show you some of the tributes that have been left around the work.
25:02Notes, medals, photographs, flowers.
25:06Let's have a look.
25:19We've got a photograph.
25:21As a mother of a boy that age, I just, I can't actually, like...
25:26No.
25:28Yep.
25:29Whew.
25:37Every day my tears are silent and invisible.
25:40Some days I can't hide them, some days I can't control them.
25:47Remember you said to me, don't cry mum.
25:50I can't help but cry, Daniel.
25:53We miss you every moment of every day.
25:55My God.
25:56When Australia and allied forces withdrew their troops in June 2021, many were left questioning the cost of the war.
26:12Amongst the soul-searching, however, one thing was clear.
26:19The art of this war had made the invisible visible.
26:24It was a truth-telling with our soldiers at the centre.
26:28And with FETS themselves using art to heal, it's possibly changed the stories we tell about war forever.
26:38Is art got a role in educating and telling your stories for the broader public?
26:44Definitely. I mean, these tattoos, I suppose, because they're military, it becomes a bit of a talking point.
26:48It sort of helps sort of break the ice.
26:54I feel like the role of the war artist is to say, this is what it felt like, this is what it cost.
27:03Yeah, art is a vehicle to tell every emotion, to get it out of you, for people to see, to share the burdens, to share whatever it is you're dealing with.
27:13I mean, I felt like that was like an unburdening on my behalf.
27:18It was like, you can have it now, this is your responsibility.
27:22Oh my God, there he is.
27:24Yeah.
27:29I really wanted it to be a call for arms for the people who could make decisions to improve things in the future.
27:37I'm just very glad that tributes are being left and it becomes meaningful for them.
27:43I think that's all art can really do, is provide permission to feel a certain way.
27:50To say it's okay, it's part of your experience.
27:56Yeah.
28:13Next time, there was a very big story to tell here.
28:27I find something hidden amongst the nation's war machines to come up with that.
28:33In the squalor of a prison camp.
28:35That reveals a story of prisoner of war survival I could never have imagined.
28:40We forget that this is what art can do.
28:41We forget that this is what art can do.
28:42what I can do.
Be the first to comment