Honouring Dr George Ian Ogilvie Duncan
(1930-1972)
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LGBTQIA+
CELEBRATION
RAINBOW
IN COLLABORATION WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE AND ADELAIDE FESTIVAL
Honouring Dr George Ian Ogilvie Duncan (1930-1972)
Queer liberation is built on the foundations laid by those who have come before us. As we continue to fight for equality and unity, remembering their struggles, triumphs, and legacies is crucial to building a strong and meaningful community with a fierce sense of shared history.
George Ian Ogilvie Duncan was born in London in 1930 and known as ‘Ian’ from an early age. The family moved to Melbourne where Ian proved himself a brilliant student, but his tertiary studies were disrupted by an attack of tuberculosis. An orphan at 21, Ian moved to Britain where he gained a doctorate in law at Cambridge University. In March 1972, he returned to Australia to take up a lectureship in law at the University of Adelaide. It was a time when male homosexual acts were criminal throughout Australia.
On the 10th of May 1972, at around 11 pm, Dr Duncan and another man, Roger James, were thrown into the River Torrens. The southern bank between City Bridge and the University of Adelaide footbridge was a ‘beat’ – a meeting place for homosexual men. Duncan drowned; James broke his ankle. The killing shocked the community, especially with suspicions that three off-duty Vice Squad officers had taken part. They were eventually charged with Duncan’s manslaughter 14 years later, in 1986. Two were brought to trial and acquitted.
Dr Duncan’s death was the trigger for the first attempt in the nation to decriminalise male homosexual acts, which occurred within 11 weeks. This failed, as did another attempt in 1973. But on the 17th of September 1975, South Australia became the first jurisdiction in Australia to achieve decriminalisation. This legislation was also the first in the English-speaking world to eliminate any distinction in the criminal law between heterosexual and homosexual, including an equal age of consent. Tasmania was the last state or territory to enact change and it took a further 22 years – not until 1997.
In commemorating Dr Duncan’s death and the gay law reform that followed, we acknowledge how far we have come in recognising and supporting our LGBTQIA+ community.
The LGBTQIA+ Celebration Rainbow stands as an icon this generation. Designed by students of architecture and engineering at the University of Adelaide, it stands as a physical manifestation of our generation’s continuing fight for the community’s inalienable right to freedom of identity, expression, autonomy, visibility and rights. Our design team celebrates the successes of intersectionality in the ongoing struggle for equality, the leading concept of the LGBTQIA+.
Designed by the students of the University of Adelaide
OUR VISION
As a symbol of our much-needed progress in the progression of queer rights, our rainbow installation will encapsulate the essence of the LGBTQIA+ community through unity, resilience and strength.
UNITY
RESILIENCE
STRENGTH
The projects’ genesis was derived from pre-existing symbols of the LGBTQIA+ community, with the conceptualisation journey conforming to a linear progression of research, extrapolation, experimentation, storytelling, and actualisation.
Universally, the rainbow flag is the most recognisable symbol of the LGBTQIA+ community, and for this reason, was the focal aspect in unifying the design; enveloping the primary structure with a tensile helix oriented rainbow.
The LGBTQIA+ Celebration Rainbow Honouring Dr Duncan’s Death was designed by students of architecture and engineering.
Furthermore, an extrapolation of a pride symbol representative of self-identity - the triangle, was formalised as dichroic triangle panels; occupants of the negative space in between the truss. Thus, producing refractive light rays throughout different times of day, as well as dimensionalising the space as purposeful.
This layering of space utilising dichroic triangles characterised as a medium, provides dimension to the storytelling of this project, reflecting both the murder of Dr Duncan and the law reform for homosexuality that followed.
The transparency of the dichroic triangle seeks to amplify the experience. Upon the base of the installation, green carnations punctuate the jarring triangles, symbols of queer pride.
