No place like home, 1999
single-channel digital video (colour, sound)
3 min 55 sec
Edition of 15
No place like home is an early video work created by Destiny Deacon in collaboration with West Australian performance artist Erin Hefferon. It shows a woman clothed in a red gingham dress walking slowly along a shadowy road in Perth’s King’s Park. Seeming calm and resolute despite her precarious circumstances, the woman’s journey is punctuated by the twinkling headlights of passing cars; these intermittently illuminate road signs while the streetlights bathe her surroundings in a ruby glow to form a hallucinatory scene of eerie tension and hopeless optimism.
The soundtrack features a piano recording of Over the Rainbow that was written for the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. This haunting melody is interspersed with audio samples of Judy Garland’s character, Dorothy, calling after Toto, and speaking the phrase ‘There’s no place like home’, which the movie famously popularised. Filmed shortly after the Claremont serial killings – a high-profile case involving the disappearance and murder of three women in Perth between 1996 and 1997, all of whom were making their way home – the video’s uneasy sound, shaky camera movements and pervasive sense of being watched by an unseen menace connects those events with the insidious terror of Australia’s systemic racism, sexism and homophobia. Collapsing time and space Deacon warned that such dangers are certainly not left in the past.
Destiny Deacon (1957–2024), a descendant of the KuKu and Erub/Mer people, is widely recognised as one of Australia’s most innovative multidisciplinary artists. Emerging in the early 1990s, her work is distinguished by its humorous vocabulary, incisive political commentary and performative approach to the use of the camera. Through her practice, Deacon deftly explored the complex interplay between language, identity and power, crafting richly layered narratives that challenged social and cultural norms while resonating with personal and collective histories.
Deacon’s thirty year career saw her achieve significant national and international recognition, with a major retrospective DESTINY at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne in 2020 and representation in the Biennale of Sydney (2024, 2008, 2000), Sharjah Biennial 15 (2023), 10th Havana Biennial (2009), Documenta 11 (2002), Yokohama Triennale (2001), 2nd Asia-Pacific Triennial (1996), and the 1st Johannesburg Biennale (1995). Her work is held in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna; Museum Sammlung Essl; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, and the Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, among others.
Represented by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery (Gadigal Country/Sydney), Booth D1.