This will be the place for a village: Victoria and Melbourne Centenary Celebrations, Percy Trompf, colour lithograph, 1934, Charles Weetman Collection of travel posters, State Library Victoria Pictures Collection. Percy Trompf Artistic Trust, courtesy Josef Lebovic Gallery, Sydney.

Percy Trompf received international acclaim for his bright, colourful and optimistic posters. The illustration on this poster, however, appears to reference Victoria’s violent beginnings. The ghostly figure of John Batman leaning on a rifle is superimposed over the city of Melbourne. Batman claimed to have purchased the land on which the city was founded; however, because the local Indigenous people of the Kulin Nation did not recognise property ownership, this land transaction could be seen as fraudulent. Many people believe that the Kulin Elders understood the signing of the deeds presented by Batman to be a form of tanderrum, a welcome ceremony in which visitors were granted protection and access to country on a temporary basis.