Kim Mahood
Position Doubtful
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.
Scribe Publications, 2016
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 Aboriginal 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 country.
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.
“An extraordinary excavation of the relationship, past and present, between settlers and indigenous Australians, deeply grounded in this alluring tract of desert, but with relevance for us all.”
About the Author
Kim Mahood is an award-winning writer and artist who grew up in Central Australia and on Tanami Downs Station. She has worked closely with Aboriginal people across Australia’s desert regions, maintains strong connections with Warlpiri and Walmajarri people, and has extensive experience in cultural and environmental mapping projects in the Tanami and Great Sandy Deserts. Kim is the author of two nonfiction books: Position Doubtful: mapping landscapes and memories (Scribe, 2016) and Craft for a Dry Lake, (Random House/Transworld, 2000) and the co-editor of Desert Lake: art, science and stories from Paruku (CSIRO, 2013). Her work is published in literary, art and current affairs journals.
