When we look at pictures: Travel television and the intimacy of companion memory

Remembering in ‘modern’ Australia arises first and foremost through the transcultural processes of settler colonialism. This article explores some questions of memory’s cultures through a discussion of ‘travel television’. It argues that this kind of television is an example of a hybrid or non-human form of remembering that I call companion memory. I consider two examples: the 1950s television series, Australian Walkabout, and a recent television series on Australian indigenous art, Art + Soul. I conclude by considering how memory and travel might help us think about the kinds of intimacy and proximity implied by the notion of ‘memory up close’.