Queen on the highway is a photo montage. This was put together with a background of the Australian countryside and a photograph of the Queen. These two images are placed together and then an image is taken of the new photograph and printed as a photograph.
I am exploring several issues with this image, the isolation of the Australian countryside, why Australia is still governed by a British Monarch (now the King) and the colonisation of Australia. By placing the Queen in a foreign environment I hope to invoke all these issues and at the same time I hope the viewer has a laugh. Can you imagine the Queen walking on a highway with no entourage? Having a private moment of solitude?
This photo won the Cumberland Hotel prize for BEST PHOTOGRAPHIC WORK
The judge described the work as follows: Melissa Scott’s Queen on the Highway. I love this work. In a recent conversation I had with the sociologist Dr Trevor Hogan he described Bruce Springsteen’s song Born to Run as encapsulating the American experience of rebellion and escape. Barrelling down a highway with intent. Trevor noted the stark contrast with the Go-betweens song Wide Open Road, which he described as speaking to the uniquely Australian experience of the vast, isolating landscapes of the Australian outback; an entirely different experience of solitude and personal reflection. Melissa’s photomontage presents the same isolating, expansive landscape. But here the person experiencing it is Queen Elizabeth II, our former sovereign, reminding us how very different the Australian condition is to that of Europeans. Then of course there’s the question of the monarchy itself, the curious situation wherein our Head of State is a King on the other side of the planet. Queen on the Highway is certainly thought provoking. It’s also hilarious!
