The Invisible Australians website caught my attention because of the way it is presented and the data that is presented on it. The invisible people of Australia or the colored people of Australia in the early 1900s living through the White Australia Policy were discriminated against and forgotten about. The message of this website is to document these people who were denied their place as Australians.
The about page mentions that it is all about the people, hence the opening page portrays the faces of the invisible Australian people. When you click on the faces the document of a certificate documenting their ‘temporary’ exit from the Commonwealth of Australia.
After reading the about page and searching the home page the message becomes more clear that the point of this browser is to acknowledge the existence of the people who once were not acknowledged as Australians because of the color of their skin. One of the researchers that created this database, Tim Sherratt mentioned that it was important that he did not “re-imprison” these people as non-white non-Australians.
This database reminded me of a portrait project known as The Memory Project (http://www.memoryproject.org/index.php). The Memory Project’s mission is to provide the youth from around the world who have been “neglected, orphaned, or disadvantaged” with portraits created by art students. They send photographs of children to art teachers around the world and then art students create a portrait of these children, which are then delivered to these children. The website shows some examples of the portraits, which reminded me of the Invisible Australian website’s emphasis of the people and the faces.
Both the Invisible Australian website and The Memory Project focus on documenting the people and acknowledging their existence. Videos on the memory project website show children from underprivileged areas thanking the art students for the portraits saying that it is nice to know that “there are more people in this world who love us.” These projects allow us to remember history and the importance that any human can have on history. The Invisible Australian project analyzes humanity in the 1900s but also allows for people to reflect on humanity today and the importance of people all over the world.