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Signing off on the State is an account of signifying and representational practices that privilege particular histories in Australia to ensure that select values forming and informing national identity are mediated. It critiques an official rhetoric that attempts to construct a stainless and heroic national narrative within Australia´s military history. It can be read as a contextual analysis between Allerding s visual art practice, the state sanctioned rituals of Anzac Day, and the contested representation of frontier warfare in the National Museum Australia and the Australian War Memorial. Drawing on the idea of the artist as a node of social relations, Allerding provides an overview of the historical relationship between the individual and the collective negotiating with the dominant structures of religion and the state. This book provides a resource of historical images pertaining to frontier conflict in Australia and should be a useful primer for anyone interested in the symbolic language of nation building.

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Amanda J. Allerding, MCA: Studied Visual Arts with minor language studies in Chinese-Putunghua at Edith Cowan University. Resource co-ordinator with the School of Communications and Arts at Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia.

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