Un Pack

2025
shredded army pack with redacted army blanket
155 x 182 x 15 cm​

The Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide showed us that women veterans are three times more likely to suicide than their male counterparts.

Using my position as an Australian Army veteran of 20 years, survivor of gendered violence, and a war widow to suicide, Un Pack asks why this little-known fact is so.

We know that over one in three women currently serving have reported sexual assault or harassment, and women who are involuntarily medically discharged from the Australian Defence Force (ADF) — often because of sexual trauma — are five times more likely to die by suicide than their civilian counterparts.

Last year, the 60 Minutes investigation, The Predators Within, featured courageous women who spoke publicly about their experiences. Not long after the episode aired, a landmark class action was launched against the ADF, representing all servicewomen who were allegedly subject to systemic sexual violence, harassment, and discrimination while working for the ADF between 2003 and 2025.

Un Pack is a counter-monument that represents the Othered costs of service, left out of traditional commemoration. Consisting of a shredded military pack framed by a partially redacted army blanket, Un Pack asks institutions to bear the weight of the emotional and physical baggage they inflict.