Yasmin Smith, Flint, 2025, live performance lecture and installation digital video, audio recorded underwater, flint (rock samples collected at Deptford Creek, River Thames Estuary, London, duration: 13 min, TCG23745

Flint, the sedimentary rock formed from the skeletons of ancient sea creatures during the Cretaceous Period, today lines the banks of the River Thames in London. In the eighteenth century, it was used as ballast in the hulls of the British First Fleet, the eleven ships that transported convicts and settler colonists to Botany Bay in 1788, marking the beginning of the violent invasion and colonisation of Indigenous lands across the continent. Indigenous tools made from flint uncovered on Bidjigal and Gadigal Country in Sydney in 2016 underwent forensic analysis and were revealed to chemically match the London flint. 

Yasmin Smith’s Flint reaches across a time period of 560 million years to tell a story of geomorphology, evolution, interconnected cultural histories, invasion, extractive economies and the deep entanglements of geology and colonial history.

The artist acknowledges all First Nations people and Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and honour their enduring connection to land, water, culture and community. The artist pays her deepest respects to Elders past, present and emerging.