Remembering World War I in Australia: Hyde Park as Site of Memory

Abstract

In Australia, importance and political capital are greatly invested in the Gallipoli Campaign, and World War I generally, and this significance is reflected in the funding attributed by the Australian government’s centenary commemorations. By focusing on Sydney’s Hyde Park, this chapter examines the different memory messages presented in this site, for example, the recently expanded Anzac War Memorial and Tony Albert’s Yininmadyemi Thou didst let fall. Drawing on theories developed by the European Union funded research project, Unsettling Remembering and Social Cohesion in Transnational Europe (UNREST), it contends that the more settled World War I memory narratives, if articulated in an agonistic fashion, could have the potential to open up debate around the difficult and traumatic histories that have taken place on Australian soil.