Imagine the document you have before you is not a book but a map It is well-used creased & folded so that when you open it no matter how carefully something tears & a line that is neither latitude nor longitude opens in the hidden geography of the place you are about to enter Since the publication of her prize-winning memoir Craft for a Dry Lake in 2000 writer & 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; & Indigenous art has flourished Comedy & tragedy familiarity & uncertainty are Mahood&s constant companions as she immerses herself in the life of a small community & in groundbreaking mapping projects What emerges in Position Doubtful is a revelation of the significance of the land to its people
- & of the burden of history Mahood is an artist of astonishing versatility She works with words with paint with installations & with performance art Her writing about her own work & collaborations & about the work of the desert artists is profoundly enlightening making palpable the link between artist & landscape This is a beautiful & intense exploration of friendships landscape & homecoming Written with great energy & humour Position Doubtful offers a unique portrait of the complexities of black & white relations in contemporary Australia