Marcia van Zeller spent years researching the wreck of the SS Georgette for her doctoral novel The Capes, completed at Curtin University in 2014. Her research took her to the State Records Office of Western Australia, the Battye Library, the tiny Busselton courtroom where the marine inquiry was held in December 1876, and to the coast itself — Redgate Beach, Calgardup Bay, the locations of this exhibition.
Her work excavated the contradictions in the historical record: the eyewitness accounts that contradicted the press; the contested role of Sam Isaacs; the captain who was found guilty and never accepted the verdict. She will give a public talk during the first week of the exhibition — drawing on her research, her novel, and what fifteen years of living with this story has taught her about the gap between history and truth.