Pictures 1963

Catalogue / Memoir
Introduction Pictures Objects Animations

PICTURES are both finished and ephemeral works made for animations.

1949----   1950----   1951----   1952----   1953----   1954----   1955----   1956----   1957----   1958----   1959----   1960----   1961----   1962----   1963----   1964----   1965----   1966----   1967----   1968----   1969----   1970----   1971----   1972----   1973----   1974----   1975----   1976----   1977----   1978----   1979----   1980----   1981----   1982----   1983----   1984----   1985----   1986----   1987----   1988----   1989----   1990----   1991----   1992----   1993----   1994----   1995----   1996----   1997----   1998----   1999----   2000----   2001----   2002----   2003----   2004----   2005----   2006----   2007----   2008----   2009----   2010----   2011----   2012----   2013----   2014----   2015----   2016----   2017----   2018----   2019----   2020----   2021----   2022----   2023----   2024----   2025----   2026----  

Smoked tongue and eel

Photo: circa 1963
Me with Hakan at a party in his family home

Photo. circa 1963.
Hakan's father Sven at "Ross",
holiday house of friends of Ca and Nora
Healsville, Victoria

A boy brings black bread, tongue and eel to school for lunch. Pronounced 'Hawk', like the bird he keeps as a pet, the boy has white hair and pale blue eyes. Just like my father's. Also like my father he is curious about the natural world, a keen observer of animal behaviour, and takes photographs of wildlife. Also practically mind. He made specimen boxes for his butterfly collection.

Hakan was specially curious about electronics and would come to our house to pick Noel's brains. I naturally found him interesting and attractive.

In 2015 I learned from Hawk's brother Ken, that the Lofhelm family came to Australia from Finland where they spoke Swedish, and that there's a whole story about why some Finns speak Swedish. I was always puzzled by Hawk's seeming desire to conform to Australian tastes and values, like he was uncomfortable with himself. But maybe I got that wrong. Memory can play strange tricks. To me Hakan was a curious mix of familiarity and a creature from another world.

EVENTS

1963: The Australian government agreed to the United States establishing a navel communications installation on the North-West Cape, 1,150 miles from Perth. There was considerable controversy over the matter, with claims that such an establishment would attract a nuclear attack in the event of war.

The Australian Almanac, Pub. Angus & Robertson 1985

1963: 14 August - Yolngu people petitioned the Australian House of Representatives with a bark petition after the government sold part of the Arnhem Land reserve on 13 March to a bauxite mining company. The government did not consult the traditional owners. When bauxite mining at Nhulunbuy near Yirrkala went ahead, the Yolngu took their case against the mining company to the Northern Territory Supreme Court. Despite their claim not being upheld in the 1971 court decision, non-indigenous Australians were alerted to the need for indigenous representation in such decisions, and a permanent parliamentary standing committee was created to scrutinise developments at Yirrkala, among other initiatives related to the indigenous people's moral right to their lands.

1963: 1 November - Indigenous Australians could vote in federal elections on the same basis as other electors when an amendment to the Commonwealth Electoral Act became law. The November 1963 election was the first federal election for Indigenous people in Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory. Indigenous voting rights in other states had been in place since 1949.

1963: 15 November - The Queensland Police Service raids the town of Mapoon [an Aboriginal Shire], forcing residents at gunpoint to leave their houses and board a boat for relocation 200 km to the north.

Written by me, Lisa Roberts/Euphausia superba (Antarctic krill), on

20/04/2026