1. Why, on the page,
''Rabbits, rabbits, rabbits'' is the sky being sucked into the statue?
I just had an idea that the
rabbits have introduced a lot of new machinery and systems, but that it is
still dependant upon natural resources to make them work (as everything in our
society is). Unfortunately, it is not a cyclical process, and is all about
consumption and disposal, so the sky gets sucked in and black waste is thrown
out. It was also the idea of almost using up all the colour in the place, including
even the sky, and making everything grey and bleak. (except for a little flower
that has survived somehow)
The fact that the sky is
being sucked into the statue suggests that there is a central government or
'Queen Rabbit' in this case, which is using the blue sky as a kind of power
source, hence the staff with powerlines coming off it. I may have been inspired
by the Midnight Oil song 'Blue Sky Mining'
which I always thought was
an interesting idea - that if someone could mine the blueness out of the sky,
they probably would, just to make money or power. It is also of course a
metaphor for pollution, which can remove a blue sky.
2. What is the significance
of the clocks and arrows? Does this symbolise the rabbits need for order and
dominance?
Basically yes. I answered a
question about clocks in an earlier question just now. The arrows are also
interesting because they are so commanding, and the symbol of an arrow is very
powerful in that it offers no choices and says 'do this!' or 'go here!'. The arrows
emphasis not only order and dominance, but a lack of imagination of the
rabbits, and there belief that there is always a correct and right way to do
things (ie. their way).
3. On the page, ''They
didn't live in trees...'' why are the buildings made out of puzzle pieces? Is
this symbolic?
It's not really symbolic,
but I was thinking about how a lot of construction in the modern world is
prefabricated, meaning that bits are made a put together a bit like a jigsaw,
and also often without a great deal of imagination, especially where everything
is identical. It also gives us the sense that the rabbits are building very
quickly, and have a kind of 'master plan' which all the other animals can only
guess at.
4. Why is there writing on
the rabbits clothing?
I just started doing this,
and thought that it looked very interesting...
often I'm not sure why. I
think maybe it's because the Rabbits have an obsession with writing and other
'abstract' kind of processes - and the first Europeans in Australia were very
fond of book-keeping and recording everything. It's almost as if they's gone
overboard with writing in the book, so they are even writing on their clothes.
The other reason, now that I
think about it, is that clothes (especially in previous centuries) often
strongly denoted your rank or lineage - your history as a person, or level of
office. (It still exists today, where business suits work more as symbols than
practical clothing, for instance - eg. ties are completely non-practical
left-overs from 18th century Europe).
These are things that only
really exist as ideas, in written form; so I would imagine that all the stuff
written on the rabbits clothes says something about how important they are, or
their place in society, particularly over other rabbits.
5. Why is the bizzare rat
eating the lizard on the page, ''They made their own houses...''?
This is a comment on the
problem of introduced species which have caused a lot of unintended damage to
their home countries; rats, pigs, dogs, goats and cats have been introduced all
over the world with disastrous results, eating a lot of native fauna or
infecting them with new disease and driving thousands of animals into
extinction. These days we are very conscious of these dangers, but back when Australia was
colonised, for instance, nobody cared or had any concept of quarrantine.
6. Why do the rabbits paint
lines on the ground?
I had the idea that they
would almost be turning the landscape into one huge map, and by doing that they
would be able to own it, and use it for whatever they needed. It is essentially
a metaphor for fencing and property boundaries - you can imagine how strange
these things must have looked to Aborigines two hundred years ago - these lines
being put across the land which had nothing to do with natural features, but were
all about putting abstract ideas on the land, to do with ownership and use.
7. Why are there little
scientific notations all over the page, ''But our old people warned us....''
I wanted the illustration
itself to look like a scientific diagram a bit, like the one that we see off to
the corner, and that we wouldn't know what these notations actually refer to. I
got the idea from looking at early drawings of artifacts, plants and animals by
colonial artists, and how they would put little notations next to everything.
8. Why are there flags and
things that resemble their flag on almost every page with rabbits on it? eg.
the pattern on the fields and the map.
The flag is also another
symbol of ownership, a bit like drawing lines on the landscape or putting that
rabbit insignia (the symbol I talk about in an earlier part of this rap) onto
objects and the landscape. The flag also looks like it could be a diagram, or a
kind of commandment to spread outwards from a central point - conveniently, it
also looks a bit like the Union Jack, and reminds us of the British Empire's
interest in invading other countries and dominating the world. So a lot of
things in the book follow the patter of the map - the pipelines, the electrical
wires, the grass-eating machines. The fact that there are so many flag symbols
around also suggests that the Rabbits are obsessed with the idea of an empire.
9. Why, on the page,
''Rabbits, rabbits, rabbits'' are some of the rabbits wearing masks?
That's an interesting
question, and I'm glad you could tell what they were!
I've always been interested
in the idea of masks, and also masks as metaphors for other things, such as
pretending to be someone you are not, or being polite to someone you don't
like. I was thinking that the rabbit city would be a bit like Victorian England
in its social behaviour, where (as happens now) a lot of people would present
themselves as something they are not, particularly wealthy, important and
fair-minded. There is a sense that the rabbit society may have a lot of
hipocrasy and self-deceit going on as well, as if the whole society works only
if everyone pretends that it does.
It's kind of an exaggeration
- and in fact the whole book is very exaggerated in it's ideas - but I feel
there is an element of truth in all of it; that there are a lot of people who
'mask' their thoughts and behaviour, or pretend everything is going well when
it obviously isn't.
