Gezichten in archieven

The real face of white Australia is om twee redenen een indrukwekkende website. Allereerst vanwege het menselijke drama dat in deze gezichten zit.

In the early twentieth century Australia defined itself as a white man’s country, yet the reality was something different. As well as Indigenous Australians, there were many thousands of non-Europeans, including Chinese, Japanese, Indians, Afghans, Syrians and Malays.
These are the Invisible Australians – men, women and children who, because of the colour of their skin and the homelands of their forebears, found themselves at odds with the nation’s claim to be white. They faced discriminatory laws and policies designed to deny them their place as Australians.
Because of this, there are extensive government records documenting their lives. The Invisible Australians project will use biographical information found in the records to link together their lives, revealing the real face of White Australia.

Maar de techniek is ook heel interessant...

These portraits were extracted from a range of government documents using a face detection script. We've tried to weed out the mistakes, but you may still notice a few oddities. Many portraits are duplicated, as multiple copies of the forms were often kept.
The records are held by the National Archives of Australia. Currently the browser only shows images from Series ST84/1. Other series will be added over time. You can read more about the records at The Tiger's Mouth.
If you click on a portrait you can view the document it came from. You'll also be able to follow a link to explore the context of the document in the National Archives of Australia's RecordSearchdatabase.

Op het weblog Discontents kun je meer lezen over de gebruikte technieken, terwijl je op The Tiger's Mouth meer over de Chinese Australiërs te weten kunt komen.