ON A CREATIVE WORLD
A MAGAZINE BY CREATIVE COWBOY // NUMBER FIVE //
Regalia Native pride Eiffel Tower Dreaming Lena Nyadbi
Napolean Oui Rainforest people
Brian Robinson
The
First Nations
Issue
Of myths and legends
Ian Waldron Kurtjar heritage
Totem Story Sid Bruce Short Joe
#05
welcome to creative-i: the First Nations issue PREVIOUS ISSUES A MAGAZINE BY CREATIVE COWBOY. JANUARY 2012
A CREATIVE i ON A CREATIVE WORLD
A MAGAZINE BY CREATIVE COWBOY. JANUARY 2012
A CREATIVE i ON A CREATIVE WORLD
A MAGAZINE BY CREATIVE COWBOY. JANUARY 2012
A CREATIVE i ON A CREATIVE WORLD
A MAGAZINE BY CREATIVE COWBOY. APRIL 2013
A CREATIVE i ON A CREATIVE WORLD
ON A CREATIVE WORLD
A MAGAZINE BY CREATIVE COWBOY // NUMBER FIVE //
Regalia Native pride Eiffel Tower Dreaming
New documentaries from Africa, Australia, Europe and the USA Cairn’s launch - Ken Thaiday: The sea, the feather and the dance machine
This issue’s theme:
This issue’s theme:
Around the world The earth is precious and it needs our guardianship...
The
Survival
The Singapore Issue
Issue
Lena Nyadbi
Napolean Oui Rainforest people
The
First Nations
issue
Brian Robinson Of myths and legends
Maasai Francis Nkodidio recipient of the Creative cowboy tertiary scholarship Art collecting can be dangerous: In search of Tongan Tapa
Ian Waldron
WOMEN WhO LEAD
Kurtjar heritage
Arahmaiani
Totem Story Sid Bruce Short Joe
in Tibet
Angelina Pwerle Bush plum
CURRENT ISSUE
Alick Tipoti
Zugub, the mask, the spirits and the stars
Christopher Green
at the British Library
Cover image Dancer Jeffrey Papatie. Photo © Roland Lorente Back cover image Ken Thaiday Snr in collaboration with Jason Christopher. Photo Jason Christopher. Clamshell with hammerhead shark, 2013; aluminium, perspex, actuators, plastic. Cairns Regional Gallery Collection: commissioned 2013 for the exhibition Ken Thaiday Snr: Erub Kebe Le, A survey from 1990 to the present. ISSN 1839-9983 CREATIVE-I #05
Korean
International art fiar
creative-i, a Creative cowboy films publication. creative-i provides news about Creative cowboy film projects around the world. Our thanks to Paul Jakubowski (Pormpuraaw), KickArts, Cairns Regional Gallery, Justin Bishop, FireWorks gallery and Warmun Art Centre.
The road to
Pormpuraaw
Sandra hill
In Durrell’s footsteps
Aminah hussien
Shanghai moon city states No room
for me
Authors and contributors Carolyn Briggs Sid Bruce Short Joe Roland Lorente Aline Saffore Katrina Chapman Cayla Dengate Dr Stéphane Laurent Peter Hylands Andrea Hylands
ARChITECTURE
Yann Follain Designing art
Stolen Generations The Little Arts Academy
Eun-Ah Kim WOOSON gallery
Technopia Tours
Editorial by Peter Hylands and Andrea Hylands Photography by Andrea and Peter Hylands and as acknowledged Design by Kai Brethouwer
WARNING: creative-i may contain the names and images of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples now deceased. PAGE 2
Foreword Elder Carolyn Briggs
Regalia Native pride
Totem Story Sid Bruce Short Joe
Warmun Art Centre
Eiffel Tower Dreaming Lena Nyadbi
Napolean Oui Rainforest people
Brian Robinson Of myths and legends
Ian Waldron Celebrating Kurtjar heritage
Joel Ngallametta Saltwater
Editions Tremblay NFP
Journey
10 BAD BAD BAG
CREATIVE-I #05
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Foreword
Carolyn Briggs
As Andrea Hylands and I found ourselves finalising the articles and stories in this First Nations issue of the creative-i magazine in Melbourne, Australia, it seemed appropriate to ask Boon wurrung Elder Carolyn Briggs to contribute the foreword. We thank Carolyn and we thank Australia’s Indigenous people for their generosity and for allowing us to explore their beautiful country. We particularly thank the artists for their contributions to this issue of creative-i, for their work and skills and the great pleasure they bring to us all.
Peter Hylands
CREATIVE-I #05
A welcome from Melbourne
Womin jeka mirambeek beek. Boon wurrung Nairm derp bordupren uther willam.
As a descendent of Melbourne’s first people, I am pleased to be able to welcome you to my country and to also share our pride in our heritage. Before Europeans arrived, this part of Australia, was the traditional country and homeland of the Kulin Nation. The Kulin Nation consisted of 5 major language groups – the Boon wurrang, the Woi wurrung, the Wudda wurrung, the Dja Dja wurrung and the Tugg wurrung. My great grandmother was from the Boon wurrang clan. She was born in the 1830s, at the same time as Europeans were establishing their settlement here in Melbourne. As is our custom, I would like to share a short story with you in the way that we do when welcoming you to this beautiful city that today we call Melbourne. When my great grandmother was a young girl, with the arrival of the Europeans, a time of great change began for our people. When Europeans first arrived in Melbourne, they were treated as guests, as was the custom of our people. But these guests, unlike other visitors, did not leave. Not only did these visitors not leave, but they broke the law. They killed animals and did PAGE 4
not eat their flesh, they killed fish during their breeding season, their animals trampled across our yam gardens and they blocked the rivers and the creeks. The people became frightened and sought advice from their old wise men and women. The old people retreated and considered their fears. Then they returned and called the people together. The old wise men and women explained that they had seen a vision. In this vision they had seen a period where there would be much upheaval and despair. But the old wise men and women said that they also had a second vision. In this vision they saw a new world, were the strength and power of the Boon wurrung people and the Kulin Nation would again be strong. They saw a time when the rivers would again run clear, a time when the animals would again be protected according to the laws of Bunjil – and they saw a time when the heritage and culture of the Boon wurrung would again be celebrated. Today our traditional country now consists of a great multicultural city, called Melbourne, where people, arts, culture and sports are celebrated. Melbourne also hosts one of the most vibrant expressions of modern Indigenous culture and heritage through music, art and CREATIVE-I #05
drama. You will see our art in the galleries, our sports people and our performers. Today we can still feel the spirit of our country and its Indigenous history as we travel through the landscapes. For our people there have been many times when we have almost given up hope, but our belief and our spirit has kept us going. This importance of this land and this place lies within our history and our culture.
For our people there have been many times when we have almost given up hope, but our belief and our spirit has kept us going. This importance of this land and this place lies within our history and our culture.
According to our tradition, our land has always been protected by our creator Bunjil who travels as an eagle and by Waarn who protects the waterways and travels as a crow. Bunjil taught the Boon wurrung to always welcome guests, but he always required the Boon wurrung to ask all visitors to make two promises; to obey the laws of Bunjil and not to harm the children or the land of Bunjil. This commitment was made through the exchange of a small bough, dipped in the water.
Womin jeka mirambeek beek. Boonerwrung Nairm derp bordupren uther willam. I welcome you to read the articles in the First Nations issue of the creative-i magazine and to share the lives and stories of Australia’s first peoples and we also visit Canada and the spectacular traditions of the powwow and its regalia. Carolyn Briggs Elder, Boon wurrung, Melbourne 2013
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CREATIVE-I #05: Regalia, native pride
Jerry Hunter & Roland
Regalia, Native pride
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Regalia, fierté autochtone
Dans cet article, nous suivons le photographe Roland Lorente et la rédactrice et animatrice Aline Saffore, sur la route des pow-wows de l’Est canadien. Aline & Jeffrey Papatie Chaque été, les membres des Premières Nations de l’Amérique du Nord se réunissent dans les pow-wows. Tout au long de la saison, nombre de participants, pour la plupart danseurs, parcourent des milliers de kilomètres pour se rassembler dans ces événements à la fois festifs et spirituels. Là, en famille et entre amis, ils célèbrent leur héritage culturel commun : ils honorent les ancêtres et la Terre mère, dansent au rythme des tambours et rétablissent leur équilibre physique, émotionnel et spirituel. Le pow-wow est un temps de CREATIVE-I #05: Regalia, native pride
partage entre les nations. C’est le temps de la fierté autochtone. C’est au cœur des ces rassemblements qu’est né le splendide projet d’exposition photo, Regalia : fierté autochtone. Dans les pow-wows, la danse joue un rôle central. Les danseurs revêtent ce qu’ils appellent des «regalia». Ces tenues traditionnelles, hautes en couleurs et riches de symboles, correspondent à des types de danse; globalement, elles s’inspirent
des habits que portaient les anciens guerriers et les femmes traditionnelles des Prairies d’Amérique du Nord. Aujourd’hui, les regalia sont aussi personnalisées. Elles reflètent la vie du danseur, son histoire, sa nation, ses valeurs et sa quête spirituelle. Ainsi, ces tenues éclatantes constituent de véritables œuvres d’art où l’ancien, le moderne et le personnel se côtoient sans se contredire. PAGE 7
“J’ai toujours était fasciné par les Premières Nations, explique le photographe Roland Lorente, pour moi ce projet d’exposition photos était d’abord l’occasion d’entrer en contact avec ces peuples. Aujourd’hui, je veux contribuer à mieux faire comprendre leur culture et leurs valeurs. Le respect, le partage, la tolérance qu’ils démontrent et leur conviction qu’un lien vital unit les humains à la Terre me touchent. Leurs différences culturelles sont précieuses et en tant que photographe, je veux les honorer, les mettre en valeur et participer à leur préservation.” Les regalia sont une expression contemporaine de cette diversité, elles conjuguent tradition et modernité. “Quand je suis arrivée au Canada, raconte Aline Saffore, on m’a souvent dit que les Amérindiens d’ici ne portaient plus de plumes, que, dans le fond, ils vivaient comme tout le monde, et que leur culture était devenue un simple folklore. Vingt ans plus tard, notre projet démontre le contraire. Leurs cultures sont variées et toujours vivantes. Et leurs plumes, souvent raillées et dénigrées, sont chargées de sens”. Originaires de France, Aline Saffore et Roland Lorente ont combiné leurs compétences et leur passion pour produire une remarquable série de portraits de danseurs. Le présent article est illustré par quelques-uns de ces portraits. Au total, la galerie compte CREATIVE-I #05: Regalia, native pride
adultes et enfants, issus de 14 nations de l’Est canadien, sont présentés. Pour réaliser leur ambitieux projet, Aline Saffore et Roland Lorente ont sillonné les provinces de l’Ontario, du Québec et de la Nouvelle-Écosse. Trois étés et seize pow-wows plus tard, le produit de leur travail livre un témoignage visuel et intimiste exceptionnel. Au Canada, plusieurs de ces images sont intégrées à l’exposition permanente Porter son identité - la collection Premiers Peuples du Musée Mc Cord, à Montréal et une première présentation de l’intégralité de l’exposition Regalia, fierté autochtone est prévue à partir de juin 2015 au Musée amérindien de Mashteuiatsh, au Québec.
Aline & Daniel Stephens une trentaine de panneaux photographiques de grand format. Chacun présente un danseur en regalia et le même danseur apparaît également dans ses vêtements de tous les jours. Ces portraits doubles sont accompagnés du témoignage des danseurs, qui confient ce qui les motive à confectionner et à porter leur magnifique regalia. En tout, 32 danseurs,
“J’ai toujours était fasciné par les Premières Nations, explique le photographe Roland Lorente, pour moi ce projet d’exposition photos était d’abord l’occasion d’entrer en contact avec ces peuples…”
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Regalia, Native pride
On the powwow trail, communities visited and powwows attended by Roland and Aline for the Regalia: Native pride project CREATIVE-I #05: Regalia, native pride
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Regalia, Native pride
Aline & Jerry Hunter
In this article we follow Roland Lorente and Aline Saffore on the powwow trail of Eastern Canada. Here is their story.
“I have been fascinated by Native people for a long time. When I immigrated to Canada, I wanted to do something concerning them as a photographer. It took me several years before finding a novel photographic idea. To me this project was first and foremost a wonderful opportunity to be in contact with First Nations’ peoples.�
Roland Lorente
CREATIVE-I #05: Regalia, native pride
The snows have melted and the Canadian landscape is once more illuminated by the brush strokes of early summer. The gentle summer sun shines its soft light, as the days grow longer. The land is warm once more. This is the time when most powwows take place. It is a time to gather and to honour ancestors, a time to honour the connection to mother earth and a time to dance and to sing. It is a time to heal and a time to worship. It is a time of respect for Native American culture and a time for native pride. The contemporary powwow was itself a reaction to the immense changes challenging the First Nations people of North America. These changes included intensifying efforts of assimilation, the difficulties of living on reservations, the more recent trend of urbanisation and a system of education that meant children were removed from their families and sent to residential school and away from their own cultural traditions and language. PAGE 10
Aline & Roland
Physically and culturally active people found themselves caught in sedentary lifestyles and locked into the increasing difficultly, if not the impossibility, of maintaining traditional practices and beliefs. It was this attempt at the systematic unravelling of native culture in both Canada and the USA that triggered a series of responses from Canada’s Native American peoples. The art of regalia and the contemporary powwow was one such response. Powwows are both social and spiritual gatherings of North America’s native people. Powwows are a time for family and feasting, they are an opportunity for different tribes to gather and a time to celebrate. In its contemporary form the powwow provides the opportunity to dance, to drum and to sing and to share and honour Native American culture. The powwow is an inclusive celebration of First Nations culture, there is a place for everyone and a place in which knowledge and spirituality can be expressed and passed on to others. There are of course many different kinds of gatherings and ceremonies of Native American CREATIVE-I #05: Regalia, native pride
peoples, many are more private and may be restricted to individuals of a particular Nation and region who have passed through, or are undergoing, initiation. Powwows are a way of connecting to culture through dance and the assembly of the native outfits or regalia, which are the deeply personal and artistic expression of each and every dancer, reflecting their lives, feelings, interests and family or spiritual quest. The regalia, while there is no absolute requirement of style, can be described as traditional outfits that embody the contemporary creativity of its owner. This philosophy has meant that there is no contradiction in blending the historic elements of regalia with the typically modern elements used in these outfits today. As Roland and Aline demonstrate so well in their images, the regalia are an artistic expression of culture, both at once contemporary in their creativity and composition and a reflection of the items worn historically by the warriors and traditional women of previous generations. At the powwow the dancing is accompanied by singing and by the sound of drums, there can be a number of drums representing the communities taking part in the powwow. Many of the dances are handed down from the First Nations peoples of the great North American plains of Canada and the United States so powwows are important in keeping traditions alive. It is here amidst the powwow that a remarkable project, Regalia: native pride was born. Roland Lorente says: “To me this project was, first, a wonderful opportunity to be in contact with First Nations’ Peoples. Then I felt that in this project was a need, indeed indifference and lack of respect towards native culture touched me and motivated me. I want to contribute to the understanding of their culture and to the promotion of their values of respect, sharing, tolerance and human connection to the Earth. I would like to help in preserving the richness of cultural differences”. PAGE 11
Roland & Gabriel Whiteduck
Aline Saffore says: “I reckoned that after 20 years of living in Canada, I had never met a native person! Our project shows the diversity of the very alive Native American culture. When I arrived in Canada I had been told that Canadian native peoples did not wear their feathers anymore and told that they live like everybody else and their culture is only folklore. What our exhibition does is to illustrate that this is far from the truth, it illustrates how their mocked and denigrated feathers do carry great significance. The fact remains that, during the last 20 years, I had not known one single Native American, with or without feathers. And, none of my colleagues, friends or neighbours is a native person. This observation made me dismayed, worried and motivated me to take part in this project.” CREATIVE-I #05: Regalia, native pride
Roland Lorente, photographer, and Aline Saffore, editor and educator, both French, have lived in Montreal for twenty years and for much of that time had little to do with Canada’s Native people. This somehow felt odd and in some ways left an uncomfortable space in their lives in an otherwise happy new life in Canada. The question that Roland and Aline asked of themselves is how they could acknowledge the values and creativity of contemporary Native American culture and in doing so how could they extend their own respect and friendship to a powerful and ancient culture in whose land they now lived? The answer for Roland and Aline was to combine their skills of photography, research and writing and to join the powwow trail in Ontario, the Province of Quebec and Nova-Scotia and in doing so to create a remarkable record of the Regalia of Native American tribes in this part of Canada. Their journey of some 10,000 kilometres and three summers began in 2010, visiting twelve different communities and attending sixteen powwows has captured the spirituality and creativity of a culture, it is an intimate record of a people in celebration and an intimate visual encounter of startling imagery. This article is illustrated by some of the images created by Roland and Aline so far. In total there are thirty large photographic panels. Each of these panels depicts a dancer in his or her native regalia. Next to this image and on each panel stands the same person, but in their usual day to day clothing. In each case a dual identity is revealed, exquisitely displaying the juxtaposition and transformation of tradition and modernity through dance and regalia. What this series of moving and memorable images present to us is the amazing diversity of First Nations in Canada. In all these panels show us 32 dancers (adults and children) from fourteen different Nations from Eastern Canada.
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“I have danced since I was six or seven. I would say I have been dancing for 40 years! All my family members danced, except my father, but he took us to powwows that he loved. He was a vender and sold crafts at the powwows.
Jeffrey Papatie
Aline says: “Each summer, thousands of Native Americans across Canada celebrate their cultural heritage. For many, these gatherings are an integral component of Native American life. So much more than a homage to the past, the powwow is an event of contemporary significance for individuals and communities”. These images, the power, creativity and dignity of the regalia raise a series of questions for the viewer. Why do Native American dancers wear these magnificent clothes and trappings at powwows? What are their motivations? What does this traditional practice mean to each of them and also to their relatives? The answers to these questions are given through individual testimonies on each photographic panel. Here is one such testimony by Mariette Sutherland.
CREATIVE-I #05: Regalia, native pride
For me, going to powwows revitalizes my spirit. It makes me happy, connected to my culture. I feel emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically well. I like the idea that I’m doing the same things that my ancestors did, it links me back to history and culture. I love the songs, I love the dances, I love the food, I love the sense of community. I have a son who is thirteen years old, he is a grass dancer, my daughter is eight, she dances fancy shawl and chicken walk. And I have a new daughter, she is two years old, she doesn’t dance yet, but she comes to powwows with us. I used to make my regalia, when I had more time, I did a lot of sewing and beading. My mother did a lot of craft, she did leatherwork, sewing, all kinds of craft, so I learnt when I was thirteen, and my daughter is learning too. My regalia is decorated with deers and the deer clan represents my spirit’s helpers. I study part time for a master in public health at University of Waterloo, and I’m self-employed as healthcare consultant.” Aline says: “At powwows, people dance to honor the Creator, Mother Earth and Ancestors. They also dance in order to heal themselves and their relatives. Dancing is worship. It is a physical enjoyment and a form of identity expression. Dancers are not professionals and any Native American who wants to dance can join the dancers. Non-native peoples are also welcomed to attend powwows and they may be invited to dance during intertribal dances”. PAGE 13
From a creative point of view and through the eye of a photographer, Roland wanted to reveal the magnificence and diversity of style of the regalia, the colours, the geometry, the textures and the materials used and the blending of historic elements with the modern elements evident in powwows today. This complex and ambitious idea was accomplished by capturing the images at the powwows rather than in a studio setting. The point here to capture the emotions of the event, the energy and powerful spirit of the dancers from inside the dance circle and in the heart of the powwow spirit. The task was then to take these images back to the studio and remove them as individuals from the background of each photo. This would mean for the viewer an intense focus on the dancer and their regalia and an exacting process for Roland as he lifted each dancer onto a neutral background. This process added to the complexity of the project and meant a great deal of time would be required to complete the images. Many hundreds of hours were spent in the studio on the exacting tasks of cutting out the dancer images and creating the new photomontage for each panel. That is the juxtaposition of each dancer both in regalia and in normal clothing. It is not hard to imagine the intricate work involved in separating the feathers, jingles, leather fringes, horsehair, porcupine hair CREATIVE-I #05: Regalia, native pride
Roland removing background from image
and spines from their original background. Roland says: “This project and future exhibitions are intended for both native peoples and nonnatives. I hope this exhibition will help to create a bridge between cultures. Our
intention here was also to contribute to improving knowledge of one of the aspects of the Native American culture and to contribute to the wellbeing of native peoples through contributing to the idea of building native pride in our native culture and communities�. PAGE 14
“Roland has created a series of images that stimulate the viewer to think more deeply about the intimate encounter with native people displayed before them.” The artist’s impression of the exhibition
Roland and Aline also wanted to express their concern, that despite the fact that things are changing (from a time when such ceremonies were prohibited and cultural expression muzzled in the hope that it could be extinguished), native peoples and their culture can still find themselves marginalized and their cultures swamped by outside cultural influences. Behind the idea of creating the body of work, Regalia: native pride, is to recognize the importance of native cultures and in doing so leave a mark on the attitudes and knowledge of non native peoples about these precious cultures. CREATIVE-I #05: Regalia, native pride
So this means that in these works we travel beyond the beauty of the dancers and their regalia, Roland has created a series of images that stimulate the viewer to think more deeply about the intimate encounter with native people displayed before them. Each panel in this series of works depicts an image of a dancer, male or female, in their native regalia, and then in a moving contrast, in their daily contemporary dress. And with each panel we discover a testimony from each person represented here, a journey from regalia to native pride.
From May 2013 a selection of these images have been part of a video projection in the new permanent exhibit Wearing our Identity: The first peoples collection at McCord Museum in Montreal. The Native Museum of Mashteuiatsh, Lake St-John, Province of Quebec will curate a major exhibition of these images in the later part of 2015, the exhibition is planned to open in June of that year.
Copyright of all images ROLAND LORENTE concept and photographs. ALINE SAFFORE editor. PAGE 15
Photo © Roland Lorente
Regalia, Native pride
Amanda Larocque Nation: Mi’kmaq Community: Gesgapegiag, Quebec Dance category: Fancy shawl
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Photo Š Roland Lorente
Regalia, Native pride
James Shawana Nations: Odawa/Potawatomi Community: Wikwemikong, Ontario Dance category: Man traditional
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Photo Š Roland Lorente
Regalia, Native pride
Sandra Lamouche Yellowhorn Spiritual name: Happy deer dancing woman Nation: Plains Cree Community: Big Stone Cree Nation, Alberta Dance category: Hoop dance
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Photo Š Roland Lorente
Regalia, Native pride
Bernard Nelson Spiritual name: Gitchi Manitou Gaamik (Spirit of earth) Nations: Ojibway / Eastern Cree Community: Eabametoong First Nation, Ontario Dance category: Man traditional
CREATIVE-I #05
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Photo Š Roland Lorente
Regalia, Native pride
Mariette Sutherland Spiritual name: Mskozii dii kwe (Strong hearted woman) Nation: Ojibway Community: White Fish River First Nation, Ontario Dance category: Fancy shawl
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Photo Š Roland Lorente
Regalia, Native pride
Theland Kicknosway Spiritual name: Nimki benoji (Thunder bird boy) Nation: Potawatomi / Swampy Cree Community: Walpole Island First Nation, Ontario Dance category: Grass dance
CREATIVE-I #05
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Sid Bruce Short Joe is a very busy man, an important project has been writing a book about totems, published in September 2013. The book Pormpuraaw Totems is available from the Pormpuraaw Art & Culture Centre. Here Sid provides some background to his latest project.
Pormpuraaw The story of the book CREATIVE-I #05
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Totem Story
Sid Bruce Short Joe
CREATIVE-I #05
My name is Sid Bruce Short Joe. I come from the “Blue Tongue Totem Lizard Country� which is north east of Pormpuraaw. It is fresh water inland country. My forefathers and all their ancestors lived here from the dreamtime. I do not own that country, it owns me. I belong to that land. When I die my spirit will go to a sacred water hole in my country. For me, it is my paradise. Being a freshwater person means we survived by eating animals and plants that grew around the fresh water. Sometimes we would travel to the coast after monsoon time. Other tribes lived on the coast with similar language to mine and we are related through marriages. We all had totems. A totem is a spiritual being that can take the form of an animal, rock, and tree. Totems allow us to trace our family tree and identify us with our country. For example, the blue tongue totem belongs inland between Holroyd and Waalang River. All this country is owned by individuals and families identified by totems. Every piece of land has a traditional owner with their owner totem, clan, language and ceremony. PAGE 23
The community of t is 700 kilometres northwest of Cairns. It is on the coastline of the Sea of Carpentaria. During monsoon time when the big rains come we become isolated. It is between two rivers and ten feet above sea level. The first Europeans arrived here in 1938. They were missionaries and a superintendent from the government in charge of Aboriginal affairs. The mission was a place for people to leave their country and live together learning white man’s way of life, work and education. People came from the north, south and east. The traditional owners of this place are the Thaayorre people. They are salt water people. Their totem is the “black duck” tribe or “minh porra” in their language. The inland or fresh water people are Wik people. They have many totems different to the Thaayorre people. The next tribe are Kugu people. Their land stretches from the Munkgan River to the south of the Kendall River. They have many totems different to Wik and Thaayorre. When someone dies we do not speak their name or totems and stay out of their country. We have ceremony with dancing and singing. This is when we teach young people about their country, totems, ceremony and dancing. We close up the dead person’s house until their family decides to stop grieving. We call this a house opening. This is when the tribes get marriage makes many together and share CREATIVE-I #05
Sid Bruce Short Joe with rainbow serpent man
“I love language, especially my own languages Kugu and Wik Iiyanh. I am a fresh water person speaking my languages but grew up amongst salt water people speaking their languages; the language of my great grandmother, a coastal woman.” PAGE 24
their traditional dancing and songs. The tribes show their respect to the deceased person and his or her tribe. Our tribes often have the same song but we sing them in our different languages. Special songs are sung that are communicated to the dead person, helping them to find their country with everlasting water. The eldest male and the youngest male member of the tribe gather leaves from the iron wood tree. This is a very special tree for us. When it burns, the leaves make a crackling sound and release a great deal of smoke. The smoke chases the spirit of the dead person out of the house. Now the house can be occupied again by family members or children of the deceased. In the old days when we lived in humpies we would burn the humpy and burn or bury the dead person’s belongings. Usually at the end of the ceremony the eldest brother or nephew or grandson will call out the dead person’s name. Everyone is then allowed to say the name and totem of the deceased. The people in the community of Pormpuraaw speak four languages; Kugu, Wik, Thaayorre and English. Pormpuraaw is divided up by our languages. Kugu people live more on the north side in their section. Wik people live outside but connected to the Kugu side. Thaayorre people live in the Southern corner. People speak their own tongue at home. When we are out and about we tend to speak Wik. I speak Thaayorre when I go to the Thaayorre side of town or when I am out bush in their country. Thaayorre are salt water people with Black Duck totem and are the traditional owners around Pormpuraaw. When I am at work and have to speak with Europeans I use English. “Southside people of Pormpuraaw mostly speak their own southern clan languages, while on the “top side” they speak six Mongan dialects related to those of Aurukun Wik language. Inter-marriage makes many trilingual as well being fluent in English. Clan stories are now handed down for the new generation and their cultures merge as older people die and young ones inter-marry.” CREATIVE-I #05
Sid Bruce Short Joe with Ghost Net Jelly Fish
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In my opinion Kugu is the oldest and original language. Kugu people are spread all through Cape York by marriage. Kugu speakers can speak Wik, Thaayorre and other dialects easily. Wik and Thaayorre people can understand but not speak Kugu. When I speak Kugu or inland Wik we use a tight tongue. This means a softer way of pronouncing words with less tonal inflection. It is more comfortable and natural for me to speak Kugu. The first language I learned was Wik Mungkan. It is the easiest to learn because it is the easiest to pronounce. My grandmother spoke Wik Iiyanh. Kugu was the language of my great, great grandmother. The Thaayorre language is completely different from Wik and Kugu. They pronounce things differently. There are other sounds in words that is the words are longer with a unique pronunciation. The easiest language for a European to learn is Wik Mungkan. It is less complicated. Words are shorter and easier to pronounce and easier to remember. I first heard and learned English from my father who was a stockman. He used English at work speaking to Europeans and other stockmen. My mother worked at cattle station as a domestic servant. They used English at work. At home we spoke traditional language. In primary school we had English speaking teachers who taught in English and Wik. The first teachers learned Wik and some Thayyorre. I always thought Europeans had only one language which was English. I was surprised to learn at boarding school and during my visits to Cairns and other places that Europeans have many languages like French, German and Spanish. We are not that different in this way; although I believe we have many more dialects in a smaller area than the Europeans. In Pormpuraaw over 400 people speak a dozen different clan languages. Younger people speak our languages but prefer to use English. The English they use I call common English. They speak more quickly; shorten words and use less pronouns. When I go to sleep and dream, I dream in all the nine languages I know. Mostly I think in Kugu and Wik Iiyanh. CREATIVE-I #05
Our languages were only meant to be spoken, not written down. We use English letters to describe the sounds we use. We often add asterisks or hyphens to accent the sounds. We use double letters to accent the pronunciation. I hope you enjoy our book on totems and language. Our totems are spiritual beings through which we trace our ancestry and land ownership. The survival of our culture depends on my people continuing to speak their languages and knowing their totems. My people used to go out in country and know the land of their forefathers. It is important for the young people to spend time experiencing their country. It is not enough to only know your totem and language.
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art centre
Warmun Art Centre
By Cayla Dengate
A plain of dried, golden spinifex stretches from Warmun Art Centre’s doors to the horizon, where it juts up against a red rock escarpment, glowing like an ember in the afternoon. CREATIVE-I #05
In this sun-dried sea of savannah, an immense boab tree anchors Warmun Art Centre in the frame - its gnarled branches providing a canopy of shade for artists. It is this sparse, beautiful environment that is central to the contemporary artists who own Warmun Art Centre. This globally significant Western Australian centre is a 100 per cent Aboriginal owned corporation where the artists preside over the studio and gallery. Isolation is no barrier between Warmun Art Centre and the contemporary art world. In this year alone, Warmun Art Centre has supported Lena Nyadbi as she launched the world’s largest installation at the base of the Eiffel Tower; It has celebrated with Mabel Juli as she won the Kate Challis RAKA Award; It has seen Churchill Cann win the West Australian Artist Award and it will surely watch on as Lena attends The Deadlys this year where she is nominated for Visual Artist of the Year. Since the centre opened in 1998, Warmun artists have been renowned for their use of natural ochre and pigments on canvas, which is integral to the contemporary expression of land and culture as identity for Indigenous Gija people. The work of Warmun artists is an inseparable and celebratory part of Gija culture and
country, and draws on traditional Ngarrangkarni (Dreaming) stories and contemporary life. Today at the centre, the boab tree is laden with seed-filled nuts – heavy with promise and potential. The art centre is also cultivating its next generation by way of emerging artists. From crushing ochre and painting boards to creating cutting-edge multimedia art in the centre’s media lab, these emerging artists are supported on their journey through Gija culture and contemporary art practice. Like the boab, Warmun Art Centre continues to cultivate emerging talent at its base while reaching its branches higher to the clear Kimberley sky.
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Rêver
Le jeudi 6 juin dernier a été inaugurée une œuvre monumentale de l’artiste aborigène Lena Nyadbi sur une portion importante du toit du Musée du Quai Branly à Paris.
Rêver de la Tour Eiffel Lena Nyadbi
Cette œuvre intitulée Dayiwul Lirlmim (Ecailles de barramundi) représente un agrandissement d’un tableau offert à l’institution par le milliardaire et philanthrope australien Harold Mitchell, qui a également participé au financement de l’opération par le biais de sa fondation. Elle figure des écailles géantes d’un poisson légendaire, le barramundi, qui s’apparente à la perche. Selon la tradition du peuple Giga, à laquelle l’artiste appartient, le poisson se serait répandu sur l’actuel territoire
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Rêver de Warmun (Etat du Kimberley, nord-ouest de l’Australie) en essayant d’échapper à un piège. A cet endroit se trouve la plus grand mine de diamants du monde, dont les formes ne sont pas sans rappeler les écailles. Elargie quarante-six fois par rapport à l’original, la décoration est visible de la Tour Eiffel, qui reçoit plus de sept millions de visiteurs par an. Cet ambitieux programme a été initié par le directeur du musée, Stéphane Martin, avec l’assentiment de l’architecte Jean Nouvel, qui a trouvé l’idée tout à fait appropriée de remplacer le revêtement bitumineux de cette « cinquième façade » par une œuvre originale. Celle-ci a été réalisée à l’aide de caches sur lesquels a été passée une peinture blanche réfléchissante utilisée pour la signalisation routière. C’est un bel hommage à une artiste âgée de plus de soixante-dix ans, qui n’a commencé à peindre qu’en 1998. La commande parachève un programme de décoration du même bâtiment effectué en 2005, auquel Linda Nyadbi avait déjà participé, et qui a rassemblé sept des plus grands artistes aborigènes pour un total d’une dizaine d’interventions sur les plafonds et les murs, toujours grâce à la fondation Harold Mitchell. Soit la plus grande commande CREATIVE-I #05
d’art contemporain aborigène en dehors de l’Australie. Linda Nyadbi a couvert la façade de la rue de l’Université d’empreintes évoquant des fers de lance (Jimbirla) et sous la partie supérieure des fenêtres, elle a peint des scarifications (Gemerre). Les gammes de couleur naturelles proviennent de la terre d’origine de l’artiste, qui interprète les motifs traditionnels avec un sens tout particulier de l’espace. L’accent donné à l’art contemporain aborigène au Musée du Quai Branly prolonge non seulement les collections importantes d’objets ancestraux de cette culture qui y sont conservés et qui ont été montrés l’an passé lors d’une grande rétrospective, mais il fait également écho au succès rencontré par cette production tant sur le marché des antiquités (à Saint-Germain-des-Prés, notamment) que sur le marché de l’art contemporain, puisqu’elle a su évoluer et se maintenir avec brio. C’est ce phénomène de longévité unique pour une expression traditionnelle que l’institution a entrepris de soutenir à travers tous ces événements. Le public s’est montré très réceptif à cette série d’initiatives. Sa motivation pour l’art aborigène tient à plusieurs facteurs. Il y a d’abord l’attrait pour des graphismes rendus populaires ; ensuite, le goût de l’exotisme, dont ont trouve des traces en France depuis le dix-
septième siècle avec des expressions telles que les « chinoiseries » du rocaille au 18e siècle, le « primitivisme » des cubistes, ou encore le « japonisme » des impressionnistes et de l’Art nouveau. L’impact de la culture japonaise ne s’est d’ailleurs jamais démenti puisque Paris est l’une des trois villes au monde à disposer d’un centre culturel nippon. Autre explication : la vogue récente de l’art contemporain dans les musées, qui participent ainsi au soutien en faveur de l’art vivant. Plus spécifiquement, l’art aborigène contemporain s’inscrit dans la découverte de l’art vivant non-occidental telle qu’elle a été initiée en 1989 par une exposition au Centre Georges Pompidou ayant fait date : les Magiciens de la terre. La mondialisation a ensuite permis le développement de cette nouvelle branche du marché de l’art. De fait, Paris est devenu un territoire d’expression inattendu pour l’art contemporain aborigène, comme s’il prolongeait un espace de vie sur un autre continent.
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Lena Nyadbi rooftop painting at The musée du quai Branly Photo Jonathan Kimberley [detail]
Eiffel Tower
Dreaming Lena Nyadbi Peter Hylands asked French scholar Dr Stéphane Laurent (Professor and Director of Research at the Sorbonne University) to write this article in English to give us all a perspective on France’s intellectual connection to the Indigenous people of Australia. The results of and stories about this connection have been both extraordinary and powerful. Lena Nyadbi’s large-scale work on the roof terrace of the Musée du Quai Branly is one of these stories. Lena is represented by Warmun Art Centre. CREATIVE-I #05
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On Thursday June 6th a monumental painting from the Aboriginal artist Lena Nyadbi was inaugurated in Paris. It can now be viewed by the seven million visitors per year to the Eiffel Tower.
Lena Nyadbi at the Warmun Art Centre photo Matthew Fallon
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Purposefully, this giant work sponsored by the Australian businessman and philanthropist Harold Mitchell, covers a large part of the roof terrace of one of the Musée du Quai Branly (also called Musée des Arts Premiers/ Primary Arts Museum) buildings, the most recent national museum of the French capital, supported and inaugurated by the former French president Jacques Chirac in 2006. The museum is located on the left bank of the Seine River (quai Branly), at one stone’s throw from the Eiffel tower, one of the most popular world landmarks. It displays objects from Europe, but presents cultures from Oceania, Africa, Asia and the Americas. To satisfy Chirac’s passion for ‘Primary arts’, the museum was designed by the French renowned architect Jean Nouvel, who agreed the idea to hide the black isolating tar covering on what he calls the ‘fifth facade’ for the building thanks to a permanently visible contemporary work in a manner to complete agreeably the construction. This commission adds an endpoint to a series of installations from Australian
indigenous artists in one of the Musée du Quai Branly’s buildings located rue de l’Université. These installations are very popular to the public. “The Musée du Quai Branly presents Australian Aboriginal contemporary art in a permanent way, explains Stéphane Martin, the director of the musée since the opening of this institution. The Australian Indigenous Art Commission at the Musée du Quai Branly, which was launched in the early 2000s, is one of the most significant cultural projects for Indigenous art from Australia in France.” The initiative came from Mr Martin himself who wished to offer to the onlookers a pleasant bird view of the building from a certain distance. It can be considered as unique in the Parisian landscape because there is no oversized decoration of this kind in the French capital. It was strongly supported by the Australian representatives in France and the French Embassy in Canberra. Australia Council chair Rupert Myer says the project strengthens ongoing ties between Australian museums and galleries and the Musée du quai Branly. “This powerful new work by Lena Nyadbi is an historic opportunity to highlight and promote Indigenous Australian art and cultures to a global audience in Paris,” he reported in a statement. Stéphane Martin approached the Australia Council in 2011 with the proposal for a large scale work at the museum. A committee PAGE 31
Lena Nyadbi rooftop painting at The musée du quai Branly photo Jonathan Kimberley
of people, including former Art Gallery of New South Wales indigenous art curator Hetti Perkins, recommended Nyadbi’s work for the rooftop project. The discussions led to visits with Nyadbi at her home in Western Australia and the creation of the artwork itself.
A legendary story hosted on the top Mrs Nyadbi work shows giant fish scales imagined by an artist already in her seventies, who is born in the Kimberley region of Northwest Australia and started to perform her CREATIVE-I #05
visual work only in 1998 at Warmun Art Centre, in Western Australia. It enlarges forty-six times the detail of a painting titled Dayiwul Lirlmim (Barramundi scales), enough to be seen from the first and the second floors of the Eiffel tower. The Barramundi is a sweet water fish, which belongs to the species of the bass. The “dream of the barramundi scales” evokes the territory of the parents of the artist, where is situated the largest diamond mine in the world. It tells the story of three women who tried to catch the ancestral barramundi in a fish trap. But the fish escaped. Pursued by
the women, he jumped over the creel before falling down on the rocks. His scales scattered across the soil at the current location of the mine. Actually, the artists always pointed out the similarity between the scales and the diamonds. The original painting by Lena Nyadbi was executed on linen with natural ochre and charcoal coming from the Gija territory. It has been offered to the museum by Harold Mitchell, who was eager to see it reproduced in a bigger dimension and as a decoration to broaden the potential audience. The piece was traced with 172 stencils measuring 3 meters by 1.5 meters on the black canvas of the roof by workers, who painted with a roller a white rubberised and waterproof color used for the city’s traffic signs. The expansion of the original painting was calculated with a computer and digitalized, a way also to facilitate the reproduction of the stencils when it will become mandatory to replace the tar covering every fifteen years or so, owing to degradations caused by the weather conditions. Until the very last moment, Stéphane Martin worried about the difficulty to achieve the work in due time because of the persistent showers which fell on Paris during a chilly spring. Lena Nyadbi belongs to the Warmun area (Turkey creek), which mostly gathers artists from the Gija people like Paddy Jaminji, Queenie McKenzie and Rover Thomas, all PAGE 32
represented at the Warmun Art Center, that Mrs Nyadbi finally joined after starting her artist’s career independently. Giga people struggle to maintain their millenary culture through religious ceremonies in which their sacred territory, Gija and the Dreamtime - the mythical time of creation for Aborigines – are made inseparable. Lena Nyadbi production is based on a bold interpretation of customary designs with a personal sense of space and color. Represented in groups or individually, symbolic references to ancestral Dayiwul barramundi (featured by its U-shaped scales) to Jimbirla (spearhead) and Gemerre (scarification) predominate. Her work is not unknown in France. The Musée already commissioned her in 2005 a mural for one of the external facades of the building entitled Jimbirla & Gemerre (spearhead and scarification). It is composed of several small modelled spearhead-shapes in raw color, which cover the surface of the wall from the second storey; black and white patterns inspired by the scarifications decorate the upper part of the windows. Again, none of the motifs is similar. They create an effect of repetition of abstract signs which capture the attention. Jimbirla stones can be found everywhere in the artist’s father’s country which is called Jimbirlan – the place of the spearhead. The Gemerre patterns resemble the traditional body scarification marks. The significance of this CREATIVE-I #05
Lena Nyadbi at the Warmun Art Centre photo Matthew Fallon
imagery is part of the artist’s cultural heritage, known as the Ngarranggarni, which is intrinsic to Nyadbi’s production. A success in France The impressive production on the top of Musée des Arts premiers pays a tribute to Lena Nyadbi’s talent in particular and to the Australian indigenous art in general, which encounters a growing success on the international art scene. The Musée du Quai Branly conserves around 33 000 objects from Oceania including 1423 aboriginal art objects from Australia such as boomerangs,
sculptures, 250 weapons, bark paintings from Arnhem Land and 69 Australian Aboriginal contemporary acrylic on canvas and synthetic polymer paintings. Last Fall, an exhibition titled ‘The origins of Western desert aboriginal Art – Australia – Tjukurrtjanu’ was organized there, showing the birth of an art output in the heart of the Australian desert. It displayed 160 pictorial artworks and 70 objects presented for the first time in Europe. The event attracted over 133,000 visitors (the museum welcomes 1.3 million visitors each year). While the Musée is dedicated to nonwestern arts, one can be surprised that aboriginal creators were preferred to creators originated from another continent such as Africa, which holds strong historical diplomatic ties with France since the colonization, even if France possesses territories in the Pacific ocean. With certainty, in a context of economical downturn, the active sponsorship from a media-buyer mogul’s foundation played in important role in making Stéphane Martin’s decision. “Through the Harold Mitchell Foundation we seek to have a transformational impact with the projects we fund,” said Mr Mitchell. “Presented in the heart of European civilization this project both raises the profile of Indigenous art and expands the ways we think about the possibilities of Aboriginal art in a global context.” PAGE 33
However, one has to keep in mind that the most successful cultural projects generally come out because of personal connections and initiatives rather than from ambitious programs. Hence, this huge 700-square-metre (7,500 sq. ft) installation conceived as a spectacle reveals a particular trend for Australian Indigenous art in nowadays France. Since ten years about, many galleries dealing with “Primary arts” opened in the Saint-Germain-des-Près area, the historical core of Paris and a hotspot for the antiques and art market. The passion for African art decreased recently on the contrary of the one for the Aboriginal art, which is more perpetuated by living artists, like the Asian arts, in China especially. It is this phenomenon of a unique longevity and creativity for a traditional expression that the Musée du Quai Branly chose to support through its commissions. In addition, indigenous Australian art calls to mind graphic design, tattoos and graffiti, which belong to a popular aesthetical language. The French public is usually fond of cultures from other continents. One can find traces of the “exotism” in the late seventeenth century, when the Sun king started to establish diplomatic and commercial relations with Turkey and China. A fashion for “Turqueries” and “Chinoiseries” developed simultaneously in the arts and literature.
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attracted the attention from cubist artists like Picasso. Notwithstanding, the interest in the Japanese arts persisted to the point that the Japanese government decided to open one of his three cultural centers in Paris (the other ones are in Tokyo and New York). The passion for the aboriginal culture echoes a recent attraction for Australia, a country where many French people started to emigrate. Capstone of a passion
Lena Nyadbi at the Warmun Art Centre photo Matthew Fallon
This phenomenon revived in the late nineteenth century with the Japonism, which reflects the discovery of a civilization, which was closed on itself for a long time. While many artists like the Impressionists inspired from Japanese prints, department stores sold various items such as garments, silk, ceramic, painted rolls (kakemonos), folding screens and fans… In the early twentieth century, African arts
The fascination for the Australian culture is epitomized by Australian Indigenous Art Commission at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, which is one of the most significant cultural projects in France in recent times, and a landmark event for contemporary Indigenous art from Australia. It consists of major interventions: two in the concrete and glass façade of the four-storey building, five ceiling installations from the ground to third floors, two internal walls and one sculptural lorrkkon (hollow log coffin). Several artists representing the major figures of Australian indigenous contemporary art across the country participated to the project. They were asked to produce specific installations under the supervision of curators and of the Cracknell & Lonergan Architects agency. PAGE 34
The artists include: Lena Nyadbi, Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford, Judy Watson, Gulumbu Yunupingu, John Mawurndjul, Tommy Watson, Ningura Napurrula, Michael Riley, Karel Kupka. The contribution of the artists and their commitment to the project exemplify the Museum’s will to embody the world’s cultures as ‘living traditions’. The program was defined in order to respect ancestral traditions. For example, the scale of the works is vast enough to be commensurate with their cultural depth, to fulfill their aesthetic sense and to be aligned on traditional panoramic rock art paintings and engravings, immense sand sculptures and majestic carved trees. The artists, who worked traditionally with painting on bark and canvas using natural and synthetic pigments, or more commonly with print-making, sculpture and photography, embraced new technologies and mediums to see their works coming to fruition on a hugely increased scale. They primarily created samples, sketches and drawings according to their own practice while integrating the place where their final work will be displayed permanently. Among them, the multi-award winning photographer and filmmaker Michael Riley showed a photographic series called Cloud which combines the key themes of his art practice. In a dream-like sequence, iconic images featuring the differing values of Aboriginality, Christianity and pastoralism CREATIVE-I #05
“Magicians of the earth was the first truly international exhibit in the sense that it was conceived on a global scale, says André Magnin, who co-organized the event, spanning the works of a hundred artists from different cultures and five continents”.
come together. He used an advanced technical process to adapt his work: starphire and float glass laminated with photographic interlayer, chadobak (spandrel glazing). More classical transposition was also used. The painter and printmaker Judy Watson who co-represented Australia at the 1997 Venice Biennale, juxtaposes drawings of natural objects from forgotten museum collections contained in her sketchbook on a window, and drawings of natural objects against a richly coloured background on the ceiling close by. This double installation using etched glass stresses a poignant evocation to the dispossession of Indigenous people and their culture. Inspired by a dream, in Two halves with bailer shell
2006 displayed on the ceiling, blue represents memory and the shell is a symbol of survival and resistance. The fascination for the emerging cultures in France finds probably its roots in an archetypal exhibition held in 1989 at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris: ‘Magicians of the Earth’. For the first time, the public could discover contemporary artists originated from nonWestern cultures who dealt with their own traditions and beliefs which they expressed through a modern language. “Magicians of the earth was the first truly international exhibit in the sense that it was conceived on a global scale, says André Magnin, who co-organized the event, spanning the works of a hundred artists from different cultures and five continents. The organizers never sought to rank the art in some hierarchical or geographic order; they let the works speak for themselves. The exhibit, with its worldwide repercussions, provoked lively debates that continue to this day. It was visionary in its conception, turning the aesthetic landscape upside down, changing the prism through which we view issues and creating new ones.” The richness and the originality of this large spectrum of creativity became both a milestone and a revelation which raised the attention for other living art performances than the history of modern art people could usually find in the museums. This interest was enhanced by PAGE 35
“Our paintings represent our memory for the next generations, explains Tommy Yannima Watson…”
the globalization phenomenon that affected the whole economy including the art market since 2000 and by the special attention paid to “Primary” arts and ‘exotism’ in France for a long time. Hence, thanks to the Musée du Quai Branly, the world becomes smaller: “Our paintings represent our memory for the next generations, explains Tommy Yannima Watson, one of the artists selected to adorn the building. If they come to the art centers, the Aborigines see the canvas painted by their parents, they can mull over their history”. This possibility now expanded to another territory, Paris, one of the world’s leading places for the arts.
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about the author
Dr Stéphane LAURENT is a French scholar versed in the culture and the prospect of the economy and industry. He is currently Professor and Director of Research at the Sorbonne University, Paris, and shows an open-mind to the world and a great interest in global issues thanks to a strong international experience. Alumnus of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, he first specialized in history to study the techniques, education, art, architecture, heritage, crafts, design, institutions and culture fields through many books and articles. He developed an international academic career, which brought him to work in Asia, in the Americas and in the Middle East where he became Dean of a College. From this diverse and long experience abroad he started to build up a cross-analysis of the economical and industrial aspects of our global world. His thinking focused on a critical approach of the French political and social situation in comparison with the USA and the growing economies in Far Asia and in the Arabic peninsula. Dr Stéphane Laurent gave numerous lectures around the world both in French and in English. His works were awarded by many grants in Brazil, the USA, Japan and China. He is currently publishing books titled “Lessons of the World” and “Made in France”, which will debate the creativity and production.
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Rainforest people:
Napolean Oui Napolean Oui
Artist NAPOLEAN OUI, a Djabugay man, is focussed on his research about his cultural heritage. It is from this research and its findings that NAPOLEAN has developed his contemporary art practice and distinctive style of art making. CREATIVE-I #05
“I have put together a database of 200 different shield designs and it was during my research that I discovered that the rainforest tribes made bark cloth, a material I have now incorporated into my art practice. All my designs are my own designs but I go back and think about the people and their culture and try to reinterpret that. What I feel about my art is that it is part of my culture, it all sort of goes together. I express our connection to living things and the land in the designs using strong ochre colours highlighted by black outlines as found traditionally on the shields of the rainforest.� PAGE 38
NAPOLEAN’s designs incorporate elements of nature including termites, depicted by white dashes on the bark of trees, ant mounds, fan palms, spiders, spider webs, fish, fish tails, and fish eggs, black bean pods, butterflies, Cassowaries and aspects of culture such as fish traps, boomerangs, spirits, firesticks and various artefacts. North Queensland’s tropical rainforests covered the coastal region between what is now Bloomfield River in the North and Townsville in the South and inland through the ranges and tablelands. These forests stretched for 500 kilometers along the coastal ranges, an area of more than 25,000 square kilometres containing some of the most precious rainforest on earth. Tribal groups living in these extensive rainforests were Banjin, Bar-Barrum, Djabugay, Djiru, Girramay, Gulngay, Gunggandji, Jirball, Koko Muluridji, Kuku Yalanji, Ma:Mu, NgadjonJii, Nywaigi, Warrgamay, Warungnu, Yidinji and Yirrganydji. Adapting to rainforest life, as Aboriginal people did over thousands of years, meant a great deal of specialisation that enabled life in the dense rainforest. The patterns of the rainforest, the traditional decorations of these tribal people were also significantly different to those found in other parts of Aboriginal Australia.
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Napolean Oui
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Adapting to rainforest life, as Aboriginal people did over thousands of years, meant a great deal of specialisation that enabled life in the dense rainforest
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The material culture of these tribes included large and broad shields with bold patterns that differed from tribe to tribe, there were large wooden swords, often 1.5 metres long, and there were cross boomerangs. These forest dwelling tribes also made bark cloth, used as bedding, for shelters and in ceremonies. The distinctive shields were made from the buttress roots of the native fig tree. The shields were used during ceremonies and in battle. They were precious objects and gave the owner status and power. Shield designs were individual and reflected the owner’s totem and kinship. The decoration of ochres and charcoal often contained the blood of the owner to enhance the shields potency in battle.
Napolean Oui
‘Only certain men had shields, having a shield was like having gold in your hands, shields were something you had to earn’ As part of the process of dispossession during the 19th and 20th centuries much of the cultural knowledge from these rainforest peoples was lost, what remains in museums across the region is often poorly documented. Cultural practice was discouraged and as people were moved off their land and into reserves and missions, large areas of the CREATIVE-I #05
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Especially in that situation there is always someone who walks last with leaves and brushes away the footprints”
rainforest was destroyed, much of it becoming agricultural land. Many artefacts were destroyed during this period as little value was attributed to these unique cultures and their histories. Weapons were typically taken away from the men and many were buried or destroyed as a way of disempowerment.
INTERVIEW Napolean and Peter discuss the rainforest culture
What artefacts do remain, particularly the rainforest shields, are regarded today as extremely precious objects.
“The rainforest was our backyard and the ocean was our front yard” The dry and the wet seasons influenced migration patterns in the various tribal territories. People lived in family groups, the women gathering food and the men hunting and defending their territory. Rainforest dwellings were constructed from branches, fronds and paperbark. Paperbark and fronds were used extensively to keep people dry from the heavy rain during the wet seasons. Women and children typically slept in these shelters while the men slept by the campfire. NAPOLEAN says:
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Napolean Oui, Gimala (fire sticks), 2012, oil stick on canvas, 1500mm x 1000mm. Photo: Michael Marzik.
“Sometimes they dug caves out of the side of a bank and then they would sweep the ground as they went into the caves so nobody could come past and see the footprints.
Peter: How many people are in the Djabugay tribe nowadays, do you have any idea? Napolean: I would not have a clue now because we are all mixed and you have people from other tribes living around this area. So it is hard to say now. If you were born in the 70s like I was it is only some of the culture you would pick up compared to my mum, my parents. Peter: So what that tends to mean as you look back on some of those objects from the past, and they have had their journey as well, once they were weapons, now we think of them as artifacts. Those objects become difficult to interpret don’t they because of the sorts of gaps that are occurring because of the past difficulties of handing down of culture? Napolean: Plus the weapons were misplaced when the white man came. The white men would dig a hole and chuck all the weapons into it because they were scared the men might use the weapons on them. Over time they just forgot about the weapons and then when someone came along to build a house on that land they found all the weapons. PAGE 42
Napolean Oui, Rainforest shield design Wabarr gabay-barra / Hunting for termites (white ants) II, 2012, woodblock on bark cloth, 760mm x 560mm. Photo: Michael Marzik. CREATIVE-I #05
Napolean Oui, Rainforest shield design Wabarr gabay-barra / Hunting for termites (white ants) IV, 2012, woodblock on bark cloth, 760mm x 560mm. Photo: Michael Marzik. PAGE 43
Peter: Do you know from your own research when people stopped living in the rainforest? When did traditional life end? Most people now are of course living in Western style housing. Napolean: It was when they split the tribes up and sent people here, there and everywhere. Peter: That is an interesting story in most of Australia I guess but it is certainly the case in North Queensland where tribal groups are split up and tribes, that would normally have not lived together, are put together on reserves. Napolean: If you were in the settlement and you did something wrong they would send you to Palm Island. Peter: And that was the history of moving people around. Napolean: Depends if you break the law in the settlement, you get sent to Palm Island, if you do something wrong there they would send you back up this way again. Peter: We are really talking about stuff that went on in the past but not very long ago, these events have created a bit of a mix up in terms of trying to interpret culture? Napolean: Yes because you have the gospel, church side of it as well. Peter: That has added another layer of complexity to the whole thing. So in a way your contemporary art of rainforest cultures has to deal with all those kinds of issues we have discussed, these issues are multilayered and very complex. CREATIVE-I #05
Napolean Oui, Guyul dadagal (fish bone), 2012, acrylic on bark cloth, 2200mm x 760mm. Photo: Michael Marzik.
Napolean: Yea, the main reason I do new designs is because no one can say anything about them. Peter: So you need to interpret the designs in your own way so that you are not crossing into other people’s tribal territory? Napolean: Yes, even though nobody appears to know anything about shield designs it is to be on the safe side. I am doing about 2000 different designs. Peter: So you are being sensitive. Some of the work you have been doing is to try and research some of the tribal culture of North Queensland, the rainforest culture. How many tribes where there? Napolean: Twenty different tribes in this region, that is from Townsville, Bloomfield, Cairns and across to the Tablelands area. Peter: How would those tribes have interrelated in the past? Do you get a sense of how they would have connected with each other? I guess people would have lived and adapted to rainforest life over thousands and thousands of years. Napolean: We all lived in the rainforest, I guess trial and error and sticking to you own area and sticking to the rules. PAGE 44
Peter: It can be pretty wet out there. In a way when you travel through North Queensland and walk through the rainforest and you go down to some of the remote beaches it is a kind of a paradise isn’t it? So people would have lived in a place of absolute plenty. The rainforest is smaller now than it was, a lot of forest has been cut down? Napolean: Some parts were taken to build houses. Peter: And to build towns. Some of the animals are in trouble in terms heading towards being endangered. Like the Cassowary, there are not many left. Napolean: Yes, the Cassowary, he is a symbol of tribes in this area.
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Peter: So people had the totems of the forest, the Cassowary, the Fresh Water and the Salt Water Crocodile? Napolean: Yes and given to you by the elders, the water lily was important to our people. My grandparents would say don’t pull the water lily up as there are fairies living underneath and they will come back and haunt you. Peter: Do you get a sense that part of the responsibility of the Aboriginal people in the rainforest was to look after the nature of the place, like you have described the water lilies? So that was part of the culture? Napoleon: Yes, mainly respect. Just take a little bit that you need and not a whole mob of it. My grandparents would say, when you go for a swim don’t chuck the water lilies out, leave them in the water. Peter: So the idea was to make sure that future generations of people living in the rainforest continued to have a livelihood and were able to live their lives, eat their food and continue on their traditions? Peter: How did you get that name Weika? Napolean: I asked my grandparents if I could have an Aboriginal name when I first started dancing, so they went to a family called Bannings and they gave me the name Weika. They named me after my great, great grandfather. Weika means the quiet one. Peter: And the quiet one was because you were quiet?
ABOVE Salt water crocodile LEFT Cassowary
Napolean: Yes I was quiet when I was little. Today there are a lot of people giving their kids Aboriginal names. My sons name is Dilwoy, after my grandfather, which means little boy who played with fire. Peter: Tell me about totems, a totem can be represented in a visual form or was it just an idea? PAGE 45
Napolean: My son has a totem, the Cassowary, that is his totem because when my partner was pregnant with him we went up to the Daintree and we saw Cassowaries. Peter: You obviously care about culture and your own culture and it is part of the art creation and the other creative things you do, the dancing and the research you are doing into your own culture. Do you get a sense that there are a lot of other Aboriginal people who are keen to keep culture going, is that the general idea within the community do you think? Napolean: Yes, up this way a lot of things have been changed, there are a lot more cultural things happening up this way. Peter: So in the last fifteen or twenty years or so there has been a cultural revival going on? Napolean: When I was at school there was nothing about our culture. It was mainly about Captain Cook and explorers. Now it is culture at schools everywhere, even the universities up here, James Cook University, they have to learn Aboriginal culture. Peter: So things have changed quite a lot. I just want to take you back into the rainforest and the way people would have lived in the past because I expect, that not only in Australia, but in the rest of the world, people do not know about the culture of Aboriginal tribes that lived in rainforest. I think you have discovered things like the use of bark cloth, this discovery obviously has its parallels in New Guinea and CREATIVE-I #05
Napolean Oui
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Indonesia, across the Pacific and in many other parts of the world. The Aboriginal people used bark cloth for various things? Napolean: Bark cloth was used to cover them. Bark cloth was made by the women who would even cut the bark out from the tree, but not the whole bark from the tree. Then they would soak the bark in water for a couple of days and then pound it. They would put the bark on a log or a rock and pound it for a couple of days. Then put the cloth in water again, take it out and then pound it again and again. Peter: Do you know if that cloth was decorated? Napolean: Well the one cloth in the museum that I have seen had symbols inside. Today we do not know what these symbols mean. Peter: We also think about the weapons that were used, the shields were clearly very important to the twenty tribes across the rainforest regions. The patterns on those shields were very distinctive and they are not the patterns you find in other parts of Australia? Napolean: They were big and bold pattern designs. Peter: And it is a reflection, and I understand that you are not using the patterns of those shields, of your own work, those sort of patterns? Napolean: That sort of design would only be used for ceremony, initiation time. Peter: When we think about the large swords that were used, would they have been decorated or would they have been plain? Napolean: No most things would have been CREATIVE-I #05
Napolean Oui, Bundarra (cassowary), 2012, oil stick on canvas, 1000mm x 2270mm. Photo: Michael Marzik.
plain. It was only for ceremonies, weddings, funerals that they were decorated. Peter: Do you get a sense that everybody in those tribes was an artist? Could anyone do the painting or did you have to be a special person? Napolean: No, you have to learn that side from your father. Peter: So that skill would be handed down to a few people within the tribe whose role it would be? Napolean: It depends what weapon you were looking at, because each man had a different role in the tribe. My grandfather, his main thing was making swords, returning boomerangs, cross boomerangs and nulla nulla, they were his four things. One day I asked him about the
shield and he just looked at me, he did not say a word. My grandmother said what did he say? I replied that he said nothing. Grandmother said, well you know why, because that is not his thing. He probably knew about it but it was not his thing to say anything about it. Peter: The elders have really stuck to those cultural requirements pretty closely over the years so you can imagine in difficult times when things were changing so much for them, how difficult that must have been, to protect those ideas and carry them on, but do so carefully. Napolean: My grandparents had a piece of land up at Kuranda, when we went up there my grandmother would be making baskets and my grandfather making a sword or something. PAGE 48
“…The dancing is about stories, stories that have never been told before…” Peter: When you think about those cultures, as in all Aboriginal societies, there was the ceremony and dancing, there was sound associated with that dancing, song. That is something as a practitioner that you have been associated with for quite some time, how do you see the way in which the dance and the music actually work in relation to the visual art that you are doing?
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Napolean: The dancing is about stories, stories that have never been told before. Sometimes when I do a dance I think this might be a good way of putting it on a shield, this dance or this song or even if you are doing an animal dance. Performing and art are two good things to put together. Peter: One of the things we can think of in those terms is that the two are much more powerful when they are put together. I suppose
that is one of the real powers of Aboriginal art and culture as all those things come together in a way that is quite remarkable and powerful. Napolean: Because everything matches up somewhere along the line. Peter: Where do you see your own art practice going? You are painting, printmaking and using new techniques that you have discovered along the way. You are using bark cloth for example, and those are prints on bark cloth. You are using oil sticks for paintings and these are all techniques that you have picked up and discovered. So there is quite a lot of research into the work you are doing? Napolean: Yes, both technical and cultural, the two frontiers of research. Peter: Do you know anything about the sounds people made? Did they have any instruments or ways of making music? Napolean: Yes, they used sticks and clapping boomerangs, only song men would use them. Peter: Did anyone use drums that you know of? Napolean: No we did not have drums. Now up on the Cape (York) they do. Peter: That is really something that has come in from the Torres Strait. It is interesting because there has been some adaptation of using instruments from other peoples’ cultures or other tribes from other parts of Australia. When we look at the shields it is worth noting that the traditional rainforest shields had a raised centre section to them. PAGE 49
“…some shields were bigger than the person who owned it because rainforest people tend to be short so they could weave in and out of the rainforest…” Napolean: Yes, just to show what tribe you are from, tribes might have a round shape or a diamond shape in the middle of their shields. It also represents the elder of the tribe. If you are holding the shield and a spear hits it the raised panel it protects your hand so the spear won’t go straight through your hand. Peter: So the back of the shield behind that raised plate is where the handle is and you put you had around that? Napolean: That is the thickest part of the shield. Peter: The rainforest shields were perhaps the largest of all the shields? Napolean: In Australia, yes, some shields were bigger than the person who owned it because rainforest people tend to be short so they could weave in and out of the rainforest. The shields were nice and big so if they were walking through a rainforest and saw another tribe and a fight broke out they could hide behind the shield. Peter: The size and height of people, that is clearly a very long-term adaptation and shows you just how long people lived in the rainforest for. They actually did adapt to that kind of life. CREATIVE-I #05
Napolean Oui, Garra (spider), 2012, acrylic on bark cloth, 2200mm x 670mm. Photo: Michael Marzik.
Napolean: Well imagine trying to chase one of them through a rainforest, they would be gone and there would not be a trace. Peter: One of the things you know about Queensland rainforests is that they are very dense indeed. People were obviously very good at vanishing so they could just melt away into the forest. Napolean: Very dense, in some parts you would not be able to walk through the forest. If you were chasing one of them blokes through the rainforest not even a leaf would be moving. Peter: So they would just vanish? I have seen it happen, people can just vanish. Napolean: You would be saying where have they gone? Sometimes there is not even a footprint left on the ground.
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Images of the rainforest people of Australia WARNING: this section of creative-i contains the images of Aboriginal people now deceased. Images courtesy of the Cairns Historical Society. Each image is described using the Cairns Historical Society caption to the photo. The circumstances in which these images were taken can be sketchy and uncertain. We publish them here to acknowledge a remarkable culture, a culture whose tribes had inhabited and adapted to the rainforest regions of Northern Australia over many thousands of years.
Barron River Aboriginal from the Charles Kerry collection AIAS. Photographer Alphonse Chargois
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Images of the rainforest people of Australia
Aboriginal group at Daintree (photo thought to have been taken by officer on barque “Lismore”) 1876
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Images of the rainforest people of Australia
Aboriginal shelters 1890s. Photographer J Atkinson
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Images of the rainforest people of Australia
Aboriginals spearing fish 1890. Dugout canoe with outrigger. Photographer A J Colclough
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Images of the rainforest people of Australia LEFT
Idindji Tribe (Deeral north to Gordonvale and Edmonton; inland to Lake Barrine; a lowland strip fronting Lambs Range from Gordonvale north to near Cairns) making dillybags 1890s. Photographer Tindall & Birdsell
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Aboriginal group, ceremonial feathers 1890s. Photographer J Atkinson CREATIVE-I #05
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Images of the rainforest people of Australia
Prepared for a corroboree 1895. Photographer J Atkinson
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Images of the rainforest people of Australia LEFT
Aboriginal camp 1895: Rainforest dwellers with figtree shields (BigunaYidiny) language or Madjay-Djabuguy language, bank wata bag (centre front) (dueubil-yed), spears, boomerang and club. The grass shelters suggest this is the season of Gurrainnya (dry season). Photographer J Atkinson
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Aboriginal from Cardwell area with sword and spear c1918 CREATIVE-I #05
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Brian Robinson
Of myths and legends CREATIVE-I #05: Brian Robinson
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Brian Robinson, August 23 1898 – Today I collected with much zeal, through the barter and exchange of gifts, ancient artefacts belonging to a race of Indigenous Australians known as Torres Strait Islanders. Wooden masks, pearl shell pendants, smoking pipes, dance objects, and a strange device called a USB flash drive, were among the items obtained. A.C. Haddon, 2011, etching printed in three colours from one plate, 495 x 980mm CREATIVE-I #05
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Brian Robinson
In August 2013 BRIAN ROBINSON was awarded the Western Australian Indigenous Art Award, Australia’s richest Indigenous art prize. In this article BRIAN ROBINSON tells PETER HYLANDS about his men + GODS exhibition (KickArts, Cairns, North Queensland 2012). Brian’s exhibition takes us on a visual journey through a world of mythology, a journey of tension between men and Gods. Men + GODS, quite an epic exhibition for me that I had been thinking about over a number of years and I was allowing time for a lot of the imagery to secure themselves. After a while I then started to build some of these sculptures and print based works. The essence and the basis for the exhibition is that it was a story telling exhibition. Just like any other exhibition really, they are all story based. But the uniqueness of the men + GODS exhibition was that it took Indigenous mythology and elements and juxtaposed these with classical western notions of art and beauty and romance. These are the myths and legends that also came from western culture, specifically from the Greeks, who had a very strong mythology. CREATIVE-I #05
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Brian Robinson, Navigating narrative - Nemo’s encounter in the Torres Strait, 2012, linocut printed in black ink from one block, 560 x 1090 mm CREATIVE-I #05
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Cast net, Waiben wharf, 2011, linocut printed in black ink from one block, 602 x 450mm CREATIVE-I #05
There was a lot of research and if you look into my studio it is part library because I have so many books and I am constantly referencing and researching various art forms, ideas, images and things like that to pull back into my work. The exhibition men + GODS was a perfect example of that. I spent about a year on actually creating the exhibition so that was a really intensive period of time when I created the images and sculptural works. Probably the thing that assisted the most was a twelve month long residency that I had at Djumbunji Press. This had allowed me the full year to develop particular images for that exhibition. There are a lot of Gods in these images as they relate to earthly beings and I think that is the beauty of lots of myths and legends internationally. That is they bounce ideas between the God figures and their high status and everyday man on earth. The clashes and all the stuff that happens between them, this tension is always present right throughout other cultural works. There are always similarities between the myths and legends of different cultures. When you read a lot you start to tease out these similarities and that is what I was actually doing with the men + GODS exhibition looking at my Indigenous cultural background, the stories, whether they are fiction or non fiction and researching and looking at all the other myths and legends out there and teasing out those similarities. Then seeing where they can be melded together to create an extension of that myth or legend or to create an entirely new myth. When you think about the human story about the world it is quite remarkable that some of these legends have such similarities. So that was a really interesting process to follow. A lot of the works in the exhibition were prints and print making so there was a lot of carving involved in creating all the images, so that was a big part of the process. The majority of the time working for that show was spent carving into lino, either Silk Cut lino or floor linoleum. There were twelve lino cuts and three to four PAGE 62
etchings in that show. The production time for those you are probably looking at about four months solid work. There was not only my work but also the time consuming work for the printer who had to print some of these very intricate linocuts. One of the great things to come out of the exhibition, and exhibitions don’t last forever. is the fantastic book men + GODS published by KickArts and the Djumbunji Press. The publication probably took just as long as creating the exhibition, both time wise and intellectually, putting thought into the publication. There were a number of writers we had to initially target and get their okay that they would write for the publication. While the publication was attached to a particular exhibition it was created so that there was a timeless element to it. It was really a publication that looked at my arts practice from my time as a young kid growing up on TI (Thursday Island) and the artistic career that I have forged for myself.
INTERVIEW
eter Hylands asked Brian about art P making in the Torres Strait.
Peter: When you think about men + GODS that was a major exhibition, there is a lot of other great work going on from other Torres Strait artists. There are a number of you who are creating these kinds of exhibitions, not only in Australia, but also in other parts of the world. What is that revival of culture, in terms of this new art practice, doing to the Torres Strait culture itself. I am thinking about younger people as well as how it impacts on the elders. Brian: It definitely has some great benefits for the culture in general. I suppose one of the impacts from the influx of print making from the Torres Straits is the acceptance and interest in that particular type of art. It is a relatively untapped artistic source, while there has always been Torres Strait art out there in the public domain, there has been for many
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Brian Robinson, Harvest season, 2011, linocut printed in black ink from one block, 515 x 795mm
years, but it has always been subsumed under the larger umbrella of Australian Indigenous culture, so it is generally lost. So exhibitions such as men+ GODS and others across the country and internationally are about pulling out aspects of the culture and putting the culture on display as an Indigenous entity that does stand alone. Peter: What I am thinking of is what does this impact have on younger people and the elders in the Torres Strait itself, I guess for young people it is a form of inspiration? Brian, Yea, yea, it definitely is, it shows what you can actually do with cultural knowledge and a little bit of skill and how far you can actually PAGE 63
push that in to main stream society. One, it puts Torres Strait on the map, two, it really pushes home cultural maintenance, Indigenous myths and legends and things like that plus daily activity and routines. A lot of this kind of knowledge is portrayed in the print work, and not only print work but in the artistic expression itself. With the younger group as well, really tapping into their cultural knowledge and background, it gives faith to a lot of the elders who will see the younger generation, particularly a generation that travels a lot more between island society and western society, it gives them faith that the culture will continue and continue very strongly for many generations to come. Peter: That is a fantastic thing that is going on, we are going to see more and more Torres Strait art, not only in Australia but also in exhibitions around Asia and Europe. Brian: The beauty of the younger group also embracing it and running with it. This activity also inspires some of the elders to start creating again like it has in a number of Indigenous communities and throughout Cape York and the Torres Strait. CREATIVE-I #05
Peter: We have spoken about this before Brian, this fantastic creativity that comes out of Melanesia and the great skills of art making, I mean some of the objects that come out of Melanesian culture are absolutely stunning and the imagery is as well. Do you get a sense of where that comes from, what is that about? Brian: What is it about – cultural artistic expression? That is quite a hard one actually. Peter: Did it have a religious or legal connotation in its early sense? Brian: Well I suppose that a lot of the traditionally based art and crafts that were produced throughout the Torres Strait had a specific meaning. It was not just created purely for the sake of creation, you know, because I like to create it. It was always ceremonial based practice and it was a way of beautifying the aesthetics of ordinary and everyday mundane items as well. So if you went to a traditional feast, you would have all your food there, plus the surrounding environment would be brilliantly decorated with woven fronds, images of animals and things like that to enliven the entire place. Peter: I suppose when you think back to the people who created the art in Melanesian culture a long time ago I guess it was not really art they were thinking about was it, the idea of art did not really exist, it was just within the cultural process? Brian: The word art did not exist in a lot of these indigenous cultures. Peter: The idea of an artist like you and some of your compatriots if you like, that is a relatively new thing in Melanesian culture, I guess that has come about in the last 50 years or so. So your generation is there to take this cultural material out to the world for the first time. Brian: Just looking at Torres Strait art itself and the history of it, the 2D drawing aspect of it that you see prominently now in Torres Strait work only really started to come to the forefront, probably back in the 1960s and 70s. That was purely because of the recording of myths and legends from the Torres Strait. This task was undertaken by Margaret Lawrie from the John Oxley State Library and that was the start of that 2D drawing period for the Torres Strait. It just grew on from that. PAGE 64
Peter: Your work is also informed by international art as an artist but also as a curator working in the Cairns Regional Gallery for a long time. That must have given you a lot of intellectual input to your ideas and the way you are working. Brian: The way I was able to thrive, not only in Australian art, but also in international art, just that experience of seeing all those different kinds of art forms and knowing about all those different art movements really allowed me to push ahead in all sorts of directions. I never sit still as a person but also within my mind as well. It is always ticking away incorporating idea on top of idea, culture on top of culture and seeing what comes out the other side. Peter: That was a brave move because what you did was you left your curatorial work to become a full time artist. Brian: Exactly, some might say a little bit mad, the move so far over the last couple of years has been fantastic. That is not to say I will push curatorial work completely out of the door because it informs a big chunk of my hands on practice and how I am able to visualise work and match works together in exhibitions such as men + GODS. Peter: Your curatorial knowledge comes out very strongly in the men + GODS exhibition. You can see the works relate to each other, they go together. There is a great fit there. You are working on your prints and you are starting to work in more sculptural paper type processes as well as doing your other sculptural work. There is a lot of skill related stuff going on, how did you learn all that? Brian: Both at college, leaving Thursday Island after high school and venturing to art college and picking up a lot of skills at college. Then when you physically leave college and you are out in the big bad world, I suppose then comes the time for individual artists to experiment with their arts practice, with the various materials they use to create their works. For me printmaking has always been a big part of my practice, both the physical block, the carving technique that you get used to and master, CREATIVE-I #05
plus the medium that you print on, that is paper. So over the years I have started to look purely at paper itself as a material to start building and creating various types of works. That is from pencil sketching and having the drawing as the finished artwork, starting to sculpt the paper in a similar way to origami but pushing it a step further. Peter: What I notice when I look at the work in progress of a number of Torres Strait artists is the skill of drawing as before carving there is a the drawing on the lino. Brian: That is correct, it will always be a fairly lose sort of drawing but there will always be that initial drawing aspect. Like many young people who dabble in the arts I was someone who always dragged along a sketchbook and pencil and I would sit there while I was waiting for the dingy to come in and sketch away. That could be from the landscape, something from reality or from something more conceptual. Peter: We are really talking about a multidimensional multimedia art form, does music play into your work at all? Brian: Music has started to come into my work, probably not so much music but more like voice recordings, people narrating myths and legends. That aspect of my practice is more noticeable in the public artwork that I create. I am starting to activate a lot of these static sculptural forms and having soft music and talking actually echoing from these sculptures. I have been thinking long and hard about all my fellow colleagues and practitioners around the country and up in the Straits. A lot of them focus on cultural maintenance as preserving the history, myths and legends, lifestyle of Torres Strait people, and that is where a lot of them do sit. Whereas for me, I am someone who looks at the artistic expression in my work, first and foremost, over anything else in that work. It is quite left field from a lot of my colleagues. That is just how I create, that is just me.
That is just how I create, that is just me.
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Ian Waldron
Celebrating Kurtjar heritage KATRINA CHAPMAN
Ian Waldron is one of Queensland’s most accomplished and imaginative contemporary Aboriginal artists, creating works that are at once beautiful and narratively strong. If you had to classify Waldron’s art in terms of demographics it would be “urban Aboriginal art”, art created by Aborigines in towns and cities, as opposed to “classical” or “tradition-based” art created by Aboriginal people in remote communities. This description, however, fails to convey the complexity of his practice and the importance of his remote, rural heritage. CREATIVE-I #05
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Ian Waldron & Katrina Chapman: Into the woods 2013; iphone image, acrylic, timber & ravenshoe red stone (diorama) 41x31x20cm
For the past 15 years Waldron has been creating a visual record of life on the Gulf of Carpentaria, in particular the life of people on his traditional Kurtjar country. His paintings of contemporary life on the cattle station Delta Downs, his personal and clan totems, and landscapes depicting the hugely diverse geography of the area, have been making their way to exhibitions in Australia, the United States and Germany. His artistic exploration of his people and place has not only brought him individual recognition, but also contributed to a growing awareness of Indigenous culture on the Gulf. This awareness is set to increase further when the work of artists Waldron has been mentoring at the Bynoe Art Centre reaches a national audience. The art centre began in 2009 when a group of local Aboriginal artists started painting together on a regular basis. Waldron was invited to mentor the artists, oversee the creation of a formal gallery space and advise on how to develop the enterprise. The art centre’s name comes from the Bynoe Community Advancement Cooperative Society (BCACS), an organisation which facilitates employment, housing and training for local Indigenous people. Choosing not to live in one of Australia’s major cities has meant that Waldron has had to be proactive about creating opportunities to engage with the wider art world. Despite living in the far north of Queensland, Waldron’s work has been represented in the many of Australia’s major art events. In 1995 Waldron won the Open Painting Category in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA) for his painting Last of the Spiritual Black Trackers after entering his work into the prize during his final year of a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the University of the Northern Territory (now the Charles Darwin University). “I have always thought it is important to test the waters by entering art prizes”. 1
1. Ian Waldron, interview by author, 20 June 2013. (All subsequent quotations from Ian Waldron are extracted from this interview except where specified) CREATIVE-I #05
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Waldron has subsequently been a finalist in many art prizes including the Dobell, Archibald, Wynne and Heysen Prizes. In 2010 he became the first mainlander and first Indigenous artist to win the prestigious Glover Prize for landscape painting. His work has also appeared at the Melbourne Art Fair, the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (CIAF), and the Sydney Contemporary art fair. Building a national profile by having a presence at these major art events has resulted in a number of large public commissions, most notably for the University of Western Sydney, the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre, Aboriginal and Islander Community Health Services Brisbane (Woolloongabba building), and the Gold Coast Holiday Inn. Applying for a NEWflames residency in Brisbane was another opportunity Waldron seized with both hands, and it has opened many doors including representation by a major gallery. Waldron’s primary source of commercial representation for the past decade has been FireWorks Gallery in Brisbane, a gallery with a history of showing innovative artists and a fresh approach to exhibition design. Waldron began his relationship with FireWorks in 2003 when he become the inaugural “NEWflame”, the first artist in a series to benefit from a six-week residency at the gallery in Newstead (the program was later moved to Cairns) where artists were provided with an income, materials, mentoring, professional networking opportunities and an exhibition. During this time Waldron had the opportunity to spend time with artists Michael Eather, Laurie Nilsen, Joanne Currie, David Paulson and Michael Nelson Jagamara. Jagamara, who was completing a series of paintings at FireWorks at the time, observed Waldron creating paintings using lines of finely drizzled paint and remarked “That’s your rain story”. Waldron’s first exhibition at FireWorks was thus poetically titled Rain over Delta, and Jagamara and Waldron went on to collaborate on a number of works. This was a pivotal experience in Waldron’s professional development. CREATIVE-I #05
Ian Waldron & Katrina Chapman: The exhibition 2013; iphone image, oil & acrylic on canvas, timber & models (diorama) 31 x 41 x 20 cm. Photo by Mick Richards
His exhibition was well-received with many works selling and he transitioned from artist in residence to represented artist. This year FireWorks celebrates 20 years, and as Waldron created a miniature FireWorks Gallery in a boxed diorama for his own exhibition there, he was marking a personal milestone, a decade with the gallery. A strong relationship has grown between Waldron and gallery director Michael Eather. PAGE 68
Eather’s respect for Waldron and his approach to art is plain: When I find myself talking about Ian Waldron’s work, my mind wanders into some interesting territory. This is partly because Ian is capable of producing quite diverse and wide ranging styles of artwork, but also because his work has a ‘fantastic’ spirit to it. By fantastic I mean the fantasia type… some fantasy. A bit of surrealism I guess… The central thread to all of Ian’s works, over the ten years I have known him, is his ability to communicate something about this remarkable and fantastic vision for the future. Rather than commiserate a sense of loss, he celebrates what he has held onto. Like all good artists he uses what is in his surrounding world and at his fingertips with economy and precision. To his credit, Ian does not get bogged down or waylaid in any victimhood, the negatives and vexed politics of being an artist or being Aboriginal for that matter… the dispossession and being hard up for money and opportunities. Instead, he chooses to portray his wealth as a proud Indigenous representative from a rich country and culture! He creates images and objects out of the here and now, and although he often glances at the past, his work is more a model for the future.2 Waldron’s optimistic energy was brought to national attention when he won the Glover Prize in 2010. The news of an Aboriginal man from North Queensland winning the country’s richest annual landscape prize was widely reported in the media and Waldron’s painting was widely praised, not least because of it’s uplifting subject matter. Walach Dhaarr (Cockle Creek) tells the story of the first positive encounter between Indigenous 2. Michael Eather, personal communication, 10 July 2012. CREATIVE-I #05
Australians and the French explorer Bruni D’Entrecasteaux when he sailed into Recherche Bay in 1792. ABC Television news reported that “One of the judges, Imants Tillers, says the piece stands out because other urban Aboriginal artists tend to use anger and dispossession as their subject matter. Whereas Ian’s quite different to that, he’s looking for more positive, a more optimistic take on it from an Aboriginal point of view”.3 Andrew Darby reported the news for The Age in an article titled “Prized peace and positivity” writing “Indigenous art and white Australia’s often troubled history turned a hopeful new page yesterday when Queensland Aborigine Ian Waldron won the Glover Prize for landscape art”.4
3. ABC News, television program, ABC television, Sydney, 5 March 2010. 4. Andrew Darby, ‘Prized peace and positivity’, The Age, 6 March, 2010 PAGE 69
Uncle Sandy after a hard day’s work (2009). 120 x 140 cm, acrylic on canvas
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to reserves outside their own country. Having effectively established authority, the pastoralists then enlisted the labour of Indigenous people to clear the land and later work on the cattle stations. Kurtjar people maintained a presence in the area and became skilled horsemen and stockmen and valued as domestic labour on the homesteads and outstations. In 1982 the Kurtjar Aboriginal Corporation (KAC) had the opportunity to make a bid to buy the 400,000 hectare Delta Downs and were successful despite strong opposition from the Bjelke Peterson Government. Delta Downs was bought for “$1.9 million through an interstate shelf company to avoid problems with the then government… then Queensland Premier Sir Joh Bjelke Petersen labelled it a scandalous
5. Katrina Strickland, ‘A message about positive stuff’, The Australian Financial
6. Jordan Baker, ‘Success for a Queensland cattle station’, 2002, nit.com.au
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waste of money… However, he lost government before he was able to act”.6 By 2002 the KAC had repaid the loan to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and the title deeds were handed to them in a special ceremony. Later that year Senator Ian Macdonald, then Queensland Minister for Forestry and Conservation, addressed the Senate on the significance of the historic handover of Delta Downs Station: I want to mention a good news story involving the Aboriginal people in the north-west area of my state and their success in looking after their own future in a commercial development which I think can act as a beacon and a way forward for Aboriginal people generally… I know that they will go from strength to strength and that the income they earn, the profits they make on this property, will be used to provide a better future for their young people and the generations to follow…It is also very pleasing to see that Aboriginal people are now taking an interest in the cattle industry again… and doing such a tremendous job... They are good horsemen, they are good stockmen and they are good cattle managers.7
7. Parliamentary Debates (Official Hansard), 16 September 2002, p. 4193-4. PAGE 71
Branding (2009). 120 x 140 cm, acrylic on canvas
The following September Australian Financial Review journalist Katrina Strickland chose to write a feature article on Waldron’s work as her report on the second CIAF. The body of work Waldron had displayed at the fair, large, dramatic black and white canvases depicting the modern history of Kurtjar people on the Gulf, was stylistically very different to Walach Dhaarr, but it was their energy and optimistic message which most struck Strickland in her article “A message about positive stuff” taken from the artist’s remark that “It’s all about positive stuff, a lot about working, and it’s important to get that message out there”.5 Waldron is passionate about sharing the considerable achievements of his people and takes every opportunity to celebrate them in his art. Such positivity is evident throughout the history of the Kurtjar people, who despite dispossession and prejudice, have succeeded to achieve amazing things. Their traditional way of life was disrupted when pastoralists began settling the area in the mid-nineteenth century. Conflict developed between natives and pastoralists when the later took over the water soaks which had been dug and used by Kurtjar people for centuries. The population of the native inhabitants was quickly depleted through shooting, poisoning and forced removal
Masters of all they survey (watering the horses after a long day) (2010). 120 x 140 cm, acrylic on canvas
Watertanks at Myravale (2009). 120 x 140 cm, acrylic on canvas
Head stockman overseeing cattle drive (2010). 120 x 140 cm, acrylic on canvas
In the days before troop carriers (2010). 120 x 140 cm, acrylic on canvas
Storeman with yarraman (2010). 120 x 140 cm, acrylic on canvas
Stockman’s quarters (2009). 120 x 140 cm, acrylic on canvas
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There is a direct relationship between the cattle industry and its Indigenous inhabitants and traditional owners caring for and continuously inhabiting country. The industry has seen generations of Kurtjar observing what is happening on country. The cattle industry and Indigenous occupation have gone hand in hand. Not only are the Kurtjar “there” but are respected and admired for their pastoral work. “Aboriginal people must have employment and we have chosen to engage with pastoralism and in the process secured access to country in a way which would be otherwise impossible – unfettered access to land which is never the case when the properties are under nonIndigenous ownership. People in the cities have no idea about struggle up here, how we have fought to make this achievement, how different our lives would be otherwise”. The cattle industry has enabled Kurtjar people to stay on country and now it is in their blood, part of their contemporary culture, identity and a source of self-esteem. One of the many initiatives that the BAAC has been able to support is the development of the Bynoe Art Centre. The artists have come a long way in the time they have been working at the art centre, but it hasn’t been an easy journey. Waldron’s continuing presence has been crucial to ongoing development. He has been able to observe each artist’s strengths CREATIVE-I #05
U4X, 2012, oil on timber 150 x 240 cm
and encourage them accordingly. Their work has developed from very figurative, decorative art to sophisticated abstract compositions, and an identifiable style is beginning to emerge. Their paintings have not been widely exhibited, being shown primarily at the art centre gallery in Normanton, where sales there have been relatively strong with a growing local collecting base and significant interest from travellers
during the tourist season. Waldron is in no hurry to show them to a wider market until they are ready. “All of our current artists show great potential and, if they are ready, I will be encouraging them to submit entries into the 2014 NATSIAA. I would also like to see them have their own stand at the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair next year”. PAGE 73
Art resources are scant and not even the national arts journals are stocked in the newsagents. Without regular interaction with other artists, development can be slow because there is not the critical feedback and encouragement necessary to maintain momentum. Travelling to Normanton each month for a week, time is divided between the studio and field-trips. Packing up the billycan, tucker-box and art materials and travelling to different locations on country is a break for everyone. Sometimes time is spent by the Gilbert River drawing and fishing, out on country looking for timber for sculpture or taking photographs. These excursions are times of exchange between artists and mentor, creating space to share culture and life experience. Ian Waldron: Seventh heaven I 2013; iphone image, oil & acrylic on canvas 115x180cm. Photo by Mick Richards
After a career working as a graphic designer, sign-writer and now full-time contemporary fine-arts practitioner, mentoring a group of other artists took some adjustment for Waldron. Working in a curatorial capacity, looking at the work of others and trying to envisage how best to direct them to maximise their creative experience has been the most crucial part of developing the skills and confidence of the artists in Normanton. CREATIVE-I #05
“It has been challenging, taking myself out of my studio and mind-space and engaging with other people’s practice on such an intimate level”. Isolation means that the artist’s hunger for feedback and stimulation, and Waldron’s time with them is intense. Normanton is thousands of kilometres away from Australia’s major commercial and public art institutions, and in the wet season the roads are cut off completely, sometimes for weeks.
Ian Waldron & Katrina Chapman: Out of the woods 2013; acrylic & timber (diorama) 41x31x20cm. Photo by Ray Bisschop PAGE 74
Waldron recognises the importance of being outside the studio to building a relationship with his countrymen and fellow artists. “Time on country puts us on another plane of interaction, common ground where we can all be more relaxed”. It is also the best environment for knowledge to be exchanged. Natural cues abound and story-telling is spontaneous. “Having the artists record the narrative of their works on paper in the studio is like pullingteeth, but take them onto country and talk flows freely”. Afternoons by the river painting and yarning have even found their way into Waldron’s artworks, most notably in the series Celebrations, shown at the Melbourne Art Fair, CIAF and FireWorks Gallery in Brisbane during 2012. The works We caught a catfish that day, Croc spotting on the Smithbourne River and Aunty fishing for catfish on the Gilbert River are vivid recollections of shared time between countrymen. On a recent visit Waldron travelled with artists onto Delta Downs Station where they waded into mangroves to collect muscles for a special meal prepared by the artists for children at the local college as part of their community outreach to increase awareness of their activities. “We spent an hour knee-deep in mud collecting giant muscles and then took a break to boil the billy-can. I was ready to pack up, but the other artists kept going for hours, CREATIVE-I #05
and after that they hunted kangaroos. It was a big day, really enjoyable. We cooked muscles on the fire, good, but salty”. I asked Waldron if the experience of that day’s hunting and gathering would find its way into an artwork and he replied “Almost certainly!”.
Working with the Bynoe artists has meant that Waldron has been able to spend plenty of time on country in the past couple of years, and it has had a remarkable impact on his work. His latest series of works transports the viewer directly into Kurtjar country, travelling into a landscape that is at once realistic and fantastic. Into the woods comprises large canvases, 130 x 180 cm, depicting terrestrial and heavenly scenes from Kurtjar country upon which Waldron’s personal totem, the Palm Cockatoo, and a clan totem, the Bloodwood Tree has been painted. The background imagery was captured by Ian on his iPhone while on country. The enlarged iPhone images are very soft-edged and have proved to be the perfect background for this series. “Most people assume it is a painted background. This wasn’t my intention, but it has resulted in satisfying compositions. I feel I have presented a personalised landscape, an insight into what I see on country”. Three-dimensional works in the form of carved sculptures and boxed dioramas8 complement the canvases. This is the first time Waldron has carved and his efforts have produced a series of charming Palm Cockatoos, stylised versions of his personal totem.
8. This series of dioramas was created in collaboration with the author PAGE 75
He cites his recent interest in carving as having grown from a desire to work with another avenue of expression for his continuing narrative about totems. “There is a naive immediacy to the sculptures. For me it has resonance with the practice of using objects in ceremony to represent spiritual concepts, the object is imbued with energy, especially when it is fashioned by your own hand. Once I started carving it progressed effortlessly, it was a meditation”. The two and three-dimensional work in Into the woods harmoniously co-habit the exhibition space. This has been achieved largely through stylistic and thematic continuity. While the dioramas are ostensibly naïve and whimsical, there is a mysterious potency through which Waldron explores his totemic connections. The Into the woods diorama sees Waldron being magnetically drawn into the bush setting, instinctively following a path seen only by him. “Totemic connection is very personal, but what I can share is the overwhelming sense of the landscape washing over you, the ultimate sense of belonging”. The paintings also have the illusion of depth. The foreground gives way to dark tones and amplifies the mystery of the works. Who knows what lies beyond the Bloodwood scrub? The unexplained and unquestioned loom large in these works, and not least of the motifs used in communicating this is the Hairy Man. Hidden into the background of canvases and traversing the forest in the Hairy Man Story diorama is a yeti-like figure. The Hairy Man is not folklore or myth, but a point of factual discussion among those who have glimpsed or encountered him (or her) in the forested areas of North Queensland. Harmless, but to be treated with respect, this creature is an intriguing figure in a landscape that is fantastic but nonetheless real. Into the woods is a new chapter in Waldron’s exploration of his totems, and while other subject matter is explored in his work, these symbols are part of an ongoing personal and aesthetic development. The artist’s CREATIVE-I #05
interest in totems extends to other first nation peoples, in particular American Indians: Although it has always been important to me, I have not always had complete freedom to explore the depth of my Kurtjar heritage. Having been brought up in a strict Christian religious setting, I was told not to concern myself with the spiritual side of my Indigenous heritage. It was not Christian, it was devil worship. Having gained confidence through my success as a visual artist I now feel free to explore the traditional aspects of my Aboriginality, and have for some years now, been seeking knowledge from extended family in the Gulf. This is how I came to know of our clan totems and my personal totem which I have been celebrating in my artwork. I carry these symbols and knowledge proudly and have reached the point where I would gain much satisfaction and growth from being able to talk to other Indigenous nations about what my totems mean to me and how PAGE 76
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Painting up (2010). 120 x 140 cm, acrylic on canvas
validating it is to incorporate them into my contemporary art practice. In turn, I am curious about the relationship that Indigenous people from other parts of the world have to their totems in contemporary life and how artists approach the use of totems in their work. I am particularly curious about how this process works in American Indian art because there are many common experiences in our history such as dispossession of land, loss of language, stolen children and mission life, and how these experiences are endured with spiritual strength.9 CREATIVE-I #05
While his artworks depicting traditional subjects such as his Palm Cockatoo and Bloodwood Tree totems are contemporary interpretations, he has a great interest in tradition-based forms. The lack of surviving material culture from his country has meant that he has had to rely on instinct and innovation to visually represent his culture. That was until June of this year when he discovered artefacts from his country in the Queensland Museum in Brisbane. Indigenous curator and photographer Michael Aird alerted Waldron to the existence of the objects in the collection and invited him to view them. The artist was delighted and amazed at the number of objects from his country different forms of woven bags, boomerangs, a club, head and waist bands and necklaces. For the first time in his life, Waldron had a reference point for his own visual art. Now he could place other objects preceding his own creations on a continuum marked by not only his own work, but those of the other artists working at the art centre. The excitement of what he has discovered, has created, and is witnessing being created on his country is palpable. “A few years ago there was just me. Now I feel like I am part of a whole visual culture with a past, present and future. I never thought I would see things fall into place like this”. This discovery has stimulated Waldron’s curiosity. “Who knows what else there is in other institutions around the world that we could learn from today. For the moment I want to savour and share what I have found, but I will be looking into finding out more in the future. Perhaps it could be a research project for the art centre, something we could discover together”.
9. Ian Waldron, personal communication, 20 October 2012. PAGE 78
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While the first half of 2013 has been eventful for artist Ian Waldron, he still has plenty on his agenda for the second half, including working on a public art project for the burgeoning Bynoe Art Centre due for completion later this year. The project is a mural covering the fence around the art centre in Normanton. Each panel incorporates his artwork and tells the story of Indigenous involvement in the history of the area. Many of his countrymen and family are depicted including his uncle Sandy Rainbow, a master stockman and Saltwater Jack, a famous crocodile hunter. Large panels printed onto vinyl will be assembled onto the existing fence and Waldron hopes the imagery will be a source of pride within the Indigenous community and an eyecatching history lesson for non-Indigenous people, drawing people in to the art centre to learn more and purchase artwork. “I have tried to make the art centre stand out and present interesting vignettes of Indigenous history on Kurtjar land. It is important to let people know what we are all about, what we have contributed. The art centre should be an important landmark in Normanton and this imagery should stimulate the imagination of visitors and residents alike”. Waldron is planning to make the finished project a reason to bring the community together. “We will have an exhibition to celebrate the new look gallery and CREATIVE-I #05
invite the whole community to support the art centre”. For contemporary artist Ian Waldron, his traditional homeland is a constant source of inspiration from which he draws the subject matter for his artworks. There is honesty in his portrayal of country, and everyday contemporary life is portrayed with equal sensitivity as historical and traditional stories. For this artist and his people, labour, industry, ownership in the Western sense, and Native title have all been integral to ongoing connection to land. Waldron’s practice is not just inspired or about his country, it is deeply rooted and connected with contemporary events and people, with his own practice feeding into the growth of an art centre where many more people are creating Gulf art.
There is honesty in his portrayal of country, and everyday contemporary life is portrayed with equal sensitivity as historical and traditional stories.
Saltwater Jack (2010). 120 x 140 cm, acrylic on canvas
About the author Katrina Chapman is an independent arts writer based in Cairns. During the past 15 years she has worked in the field of Australian Indigenous art, gaining extensive experience in artist management and research. Katrina’s research has concentrated on the analysis of discourse surrounding Australian Aboriginal art and citybased Aboriginal art.
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Saltwater
Joel Ngallametta
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I want to take you back more than 400 years to 1606 and the Dutch East India Company vessel the Duyfken as it dropped anchor at Cape Keerweer in the Gulf of Carpentaria all those centuries ago. We are in a place that is 70 kilometers or so to the South of the settlement known as Aurukun on the western shores of Cape York Peninsula. To the Aboriginal people living along the shores of the Gulf at that time these visitors looked like white ghosts. Today, the stories from the Cape handed down from generation to generation and the secondary accounts that survive in Europe, suggest that all did not go well with this first encounter during which, legend has it, nine Dutchmen were killed during skirmishes with local Indigenous people. Subsequent encounters also led to the death of Aboriginal men, once such an encounter in 1623 when it is recorded that at least one Aboriginal (Wik) man was shot. It was a little more than 400 years later that Joel Ngallametta was to extend his hand of friendship across the oceans and to the Netherlands. In October 2007, Joel joined a delegation of eight Aboriginals, both men and women, from Aurukun who travelled to the Netherlands. Their journey by 747 would take 20 hours, not the months taken by the sailing ship Duyfken all those years earlier. Their initiative, to present ceremonial law poles to the Netherlands as a sign of reconciliation. These poles known as Thapa yongk law poles, represented inverted trees, which provided a way for the spirit to return to the earth. Once used in funerary ceremonies these poles are now used in house opening ceremonies so that the spirit can be guided back to the place of birth. As in Joel’s paintings the ochre represents the reflection of the sun as it sets over the Gulf of Carpentaria, the white represents the reflecting salt water of the shore. Joel and Ron Yunkaporta were the artists who had CREATIVE-I #05
“…legend has it, nine Dutchmen were killed during skirmishes with local Indigenous people…” created the law poles presented to the people and Government of the Netherlands. During this trip Joel visited Amsterdam and Utrecht and participated in the ceremony to commemorate that first encounter 400 years earlier at the Aboriginal Art Museum of Utrecht. Today and in Cairns Joel’s distinguished sculptures can be viewed at the Cairns International Airport. It is in Cairns that we catch up with Joel as he works on a new painting at Canopy Art Centre. PAGE 82
Joel Ngallametta
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My family are from the saltwater, all the paintings that I do, the white represents the salt water, and the red represents the sun, when the sun sinks down on the saltwater. I am a song man, and a traditional dancer as well. My father, when he passed away, I am the eldest son and do the singing and dancing as well. Of course I was bred and born in Aurukun, My father was originally from Pormpuraaw. With my art I travel around, Australia and overseas, I have been to places like the Netherlands, Amsterdam and Utrecht.
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Then with my art, I have been to places like China, Hong Kong, and took some of them, herbs, bush medicine. Now I am working in the City at this art centre here, contemporary, people come around here and see my art, my paintings. The ochre, we go out to the salt plains, and dig down into the ground, and find the yellow ochre, and pick it up, and put it in a pile, and take it home, make a fire, and cook them on the coals. From the yellow it turns into red.
Traditional dancing uses the paint as well, I am a song man, dancer and a singer, my father gave his knowledge to me, and me, to my son. All the traditional ways of learning, when I was a kid my father used to come and sing along, when I used to go to sleep it goes in my head, the words, what it means. I can speak Wik, Mungkan, Aurukun, My father is from Pormpuraaw, I can speak both languages, Aurukun, Pormpuraaw, I can speak both languages, And even my mother’s side, Thaayorre, English is my fourth language.
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Joel Ngallametta and Theo Tremblay
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Editions Tremblay
NFP A recent trip to Cairns was the oppor足 tunity to catch up with Theo Tremblay and partner Paloma Ramos at Canopy Art Centre / Editions Tremblay NFP.
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Master printer Theo Tremblay is a pioneer of collaborative printmaking and publishing, mentoring Aboriginal and Zenadh Kes (Torres Strait) artists in a number of print mediums including etching, lithography, relief printing, monoprint and screen printing. The art created in the print workshop is acquired by collectors, galleries and museums in Australia and overseas.
At the very centre of the philosophy of Canopy Art Centre / Editions Tremblay NFP stands the idea of creating respect and dignity for Indigenous people through art. This idea, this hub of art making, has empowered emerging artists to provoke discussion through their art and to express the issues and stories that raise social awareness and create the foundations for change. PAGE 86
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Theo discusses the way in which the print workshop operates and how printmaking has developed in both the Melanesian and Aboriginal cultures of Australia. The print workshop is a place where Indigenous artists gather to produce their work. The internationally famous artist and the newly inspired artist, all working together in one facility under the guidance of master printer Theo Tremblay. It is in these prints that many traditional stories are told. “We want people to experiment even if they have not made art before. If they have a good story, a good narrative and they want to express themselves, although we like to work with artists who have had a background, but some don’t. Many of the artists have seen art, they have totems, they have stories, they usually have a lot of visual information that they can use in their work. So it is not unusual to take someone who is sixty or seventy years old and has never made art before but are now producing some really interesting stuff”. Theo Tremblay
“I have a very strong sense that this place forms a critical part of the infrastructure of art making in Northern Queensland and deserves recognition, particularly for the extraordinary efforts of print workshop proprietors Theo and Paloma in assisting the region’s indigenous artists to develop their careers”. Peter Hylands CREATIVE-I #05
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the stories back together in a way that they do make sense.
Peter: I assume that the younger generation of Indigenous people are less religious than their parents, those that were missioned if you like, so that’s a fading thing? Theo: Yes, I think so, that is fading, they are reconnecting with their stories, they are looking back to their roots much further than the missionaries, they feel let down, a whole generation are reconnecting, re-establishing the stories and narratives that existed before, giving them more identity in a broader world and wanting to feel special and part of a culture, relearning those things. Its interesting to find that the prints we were making twenty to thirty years ago are becoming more and more relevant to the youth now, and they are asking those questions and finding the answers. I think they are learning very quickly, because their culture is part of their identity. A lot of stories are being documented and placed in collections around Australia, but there are other stories being unearthed all the time. I think there is a new energy a new spirit in finding these things out. Finding out what’s unique for my own place, my own people. Peter: What I find fascinating is that it must be incredibly difficult to put the stories back together again, once the song cycle has been broken. I get a sense I think in some parts CREATIVE-I #05
Peter: What I find remarkable about the Torres Strait Islands in Australia was that when I was growing up in a different culture far from Australia I knew about the Torres Strait and its people. As a contrast to this I noticed that particularly in the Southern parts of Australia people appear to know little about the Torres Strait and some have not even heard of the region. With that also goes a poor understanding of Melanesian culture in Australia? of Australia people are struggling to do that because they do not have all the pieces of the jigsaw. I guess because what has gone in Queensland it applies quite strongly here? Theo: There is nothing wrong with a struggle, indifference is something no one tolerates, but as you said there is a struggle in trying to put those pieces together again. Firstly the task is to identify the stories and then to try and make sense of them. The lovely thing about an oral society, oral tradition, is that you can put
Theo: Good question and that is why we are here. I did not know either but rather than ignoring it and looking away we came here and built relationships with Torres Strait Islander artists, it was the only part of Australia that we did not know much about. I first visited Cairns in 1989 because I was invited to do so, that was my first signal to investigate. I went to Darwin a couple of years later to work on my preliminary MA degree, initially collaborating with Aboriginal artists but I also included Torres Strait artists
“Its interesting to find that the prints we were making twenty to thirty years ago are becoming more and more relevant to the youth now.” Theo Tremblay PAGE 89
later on because I felt they were in a category of their own, they did not fit the mainland parameters of what Indigenous art looked like. There is a close connection to the Pacific islands and Papua New Guinea but many of the people see their continuity more in line with Fiji and Tonga and Samoa and Papua New Guinea. Islanders are the most affable and communicative people and they are very hard workers and very thoughtful people. These attributes have evolved as a consequence, I think, of their island existence and their ability to communicate with those people travelling between islands. For that reason a few years ago we had an exhibition called Story boat narratives from the Torres Strait. We are planning a second exhibition as there are those stories that travel from island to island, from person to person and we want to get people to talk about their stories, talk about their narratives and their unique position upon the earth. The interesting thing that I find now is there is a crossroads here in Cairns and Townsville, where there are as many people living away from the islands as there are on the islands themselves, and I think it will always be that way. People will continue looking to the mainland for work and those of us who want to visit the islands and experience an island life, it is quite unique, you have been there and you know the beauty and the remoteness of it all.
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“Islanders are the most affable and communicative people and they are very hard workers and very thoughtful people.� Theo Tremblay
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Journeys There have been many Creative cowboy journeys to beautiful places around the world, from now on we will tell you about one in each new issue of creative-i magazine. Here is the first journey. CREATIVE-I #05
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Ken Thaiday Snr
1st
journey A walk from Seim to Medige
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Ken Thaiday’s memories from childhood told him that there was a great distance between the Villages of Seim and Medige. For a young child, and before there were modern roads and cars, it would have seemed like a long way. Many of the houses in Seim are built at the edge of the beach, on the zone where the coconut palms meet the sand. During a high tide the waves almost touch the walls of some houses. The main street, which is the only street, is lined with coconut palms. The village shop is busy all day and the village children play games of chase, they run through the village and its gardens, and much to the irritation of the elders, throw things at each other. It can be windy in Seim. In fact it is windy for much of the year. Happily tropical cyclones are rare in the Torres Strait. During summer, that is early in the year, the prevailing monsoon winds blow from the northwest at around 20 km per hour. During the winter (April to November) the winds turn to dry south-easterly trades that gust at around 30 km per hour. Because of the reefs, wave heights rarely exceed 3.5m and are always lower during the monsoon period. The seas can be choppy making trips in small boats dangerous during certain periods of active weather. To some extent the islands are protected from the large swells generated in the Coral Sea, which are blocked by the northern most extension of the Great Barrier Reef. CREATIVE-I #05
…the village children play games of chase, they run through the village and its gardens, and much to the irritation of the elders, throw things at each other… PAGE 93
The Torres Strait can be a difficult place if you are a camera person dealing with the chop of the sea and the gusting winds. Our bedroom overlooks the ocean, the wind blows in through the louver windows blowing the curtains so hard that they are parallel to the ceiling. They stay that way all night long as the wind howls around us. KEN THAIDAY is staying at Sarah and Pau’s house on the opposite side of Medige to where we are staying in Seim. We decide to walk to Medige to see KEN, at a guess the most likely place to find Ken will be on the jetty with his fishing line. What seemed to the young KEN THAIDAY to be a great distance turns into a short walk as Seim and Medige have both expanded along the shoreline, almost to meet each other. The area between these villages was once a sandy track surrounded with a beautiful beach lined CREATIVE-I #05
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with coconut palms. It is the place where KEN remembers the villagers dancing and where he learnt to dance as a child. Today the area has been cleared and filled in with rubble to create what resembles an untidy car park. In one part of this area the new health centre stands. Most of what is left is empty, with the exception of a couple of rusting containers and a large stack of abandoned cement sacks, perhaps the remainder of a construction project long ago, the cement now turned solid as rock. At the far end of this space is a hill in an area called Proserpine, this is KEN’s land. I am not the only one to reflect on the changes in Erub. Artist, CLINTON NAIN, also reflects on these changes in his work Erub has a bitumen road now. This painting is owned by the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia. CREATIVE-I #05
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10 BAD
The creative cowboy global design project:
10 BAD Indentify
consumer products
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stage
1 Identify 10 BAD consumer products that, in their current form, are an environmental menace. These products might harm animals when they end up in the environment because the products trap animals or are ingested by them or the products might just be a pollution and health menace in their current form and construction. We might ask the question, do we really need the product at all? 10 BAD stage
2 The challenge will be to think of ways to redesign the 10 BAD or replace them entirely.
10 BAD stage
3
To sell these design changes to manufacturers and consumers.
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Choice 1 the single use plastic bag CREATIVE-I #05
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The first of the consumer products to be selected for stage one of the BAD 10 project is the single use plastic bag. This is why. It is a numbers game • 500 billion single use plastic bags are produced and discarded each year • 8.1 billion of these bags are discarded in the United Kingdom each year • England’s shoppers discard 6.8 billion of these bags • Highest per capita use of bags in the United Kingdom is in Scotland • Australia discards 4 billion single use plastic bags each year • The United States discards the most plastic bags, a number in excess of 100 billion single use plastic bags each year • Profligate USA, the use of all types of plastics bags in the USA is around 23 bags per person per week, this compares with the Scottish figure of 3 bags per week per person. So America that is nearly 8 times as many per person than your Scottish cousins! • As other economies around the world develop this means even more plastic bags • It would be wishful thinking to imagine that large numbers of single use plastic bags are recycled, in the scale of things the numbers are minute
Our rivers, lakes, seas and oceans are NOT a rubbish tip The seas and oceans on our planet are now home to almost 50,000 pieces of plastic for every square kilometre of ocean surface The North Pacific gyre, the largest ecosystem on earth at 20 million square kilometers of ocean, is home to a developing and vast continent of plastic trash. This pelagic and decomposing chemical dump is created by plastic waste coming from the countries bordering the North Pacific, including the USA and Japan, from the land, the polluting rivers systems that carry the garbage from far inland out into the ocean and the ships that discard their rubbish at sea. This toxic mass is concentrated by the gyre’s ocean currents. The plastic waste in our oceans, seas and fresh water systems is dangerous at every scale, at the microscopic level once degraded, small plastic items are mistaken for food by seabirds and other animals who feed the junk to their young (the death is agonising) and at large scale including the ghosts nets that continue to fish our oceans long after they have been discarded.
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Why have single use plastic bags been selected here? • The enormous scale of and growing numbers of single use plastic bags being discarded • The danger these discarded single use plastic bags have to life on the planet, include birds, fish, reptiles, and mammals (including humans) • Plastics bags are now responsible for more than one million bird deaths each year and the death of many more animal species • Single use plastic bags are a relatively new and unwelcome product, generations of shoppers have managed perfectly well with out them • Single use plastic bags are a climate change menace, responsible for blocking drains and exasperating flooding events • Single use plastic bags can take a very long time to break down, when they do, billions are polluting our land and water systems • Your children will have to live with the legacy of these things CREATIVE-I #05
So who is doing what? Even though the enormous problems being created by single use plastic bags are recognised and understood many consumers continue to use them. While retailers are becoming more conscious of the issues, where allowed, they continue to supply single use plastic bags to their customers. Some countries are attempting to apply stricter rules to the distribution of single use plastic bags and these include Italy and Bangladesh. In the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland and Wales (soon to be joined by Scotland) have imposed a 5p levy on single use plastic bags and this appears to be having an
impact on the number of bags being distributed. Meanwhile England appears to be disrupting the European Union’s efforts to reduce the number of single use plastic bags discarded there each year. Australia is doing some good things. South Australia, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory have all banned the use of single use plastic bags (in Australia described as lightweight plastic bags). Tasmania will follow their lead from 1 November 2013. Local Governments such as Freemantle in Western Australia are also playing their part in discouraging the use of plastic bags by banning them, so too are small country towns such as Coles Bay in Tasmania. PAGE 98
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Meanwhile, despite single use plastic bags accounting for the deaths of around 100,000 marine animals in Australia each year, the Queensland Government, the government in Australia directly responsible for the wellbeing of the Great Barrier Reef, refuses to implement a ban on single use plastic bags. The South Australian Government makes the point that single use plastic bags are not really free, Australian Governments spend at least $200 million each year clearing up this type of rubbish. Neither are these bags free for households as they add to the price of the weekly shopping basket. Somebody has to pay in the end, and that is all of us. There has been a move against the distribution of single use plastic bags in Africa too, Kenya, Botswana, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda have all introduced various kinds of legislation to reduce their use. China and India are also acting, China issuing the plastic bag reduction order and some Indian States such as Himachal Pradesh, which implemented it laws prohibiting the CREATIVE-I #05
production, storage, use, sale and distribution of plastic bags in 2003 because of the significant impact the bags were having on the fragile Himalayan environment. In the USA there has also been a move by some states (a growing number) to restrict the use of single use plastic bags. In late 2007 San Francisco was the first city in the USA to ban the use of this type of plastic bag. Economy England’s lack of action in these matters appears to be based around the idea that deterring the manufacture of single use plastic bags is somehow bad for the economy. The purpose here is to get manufacturers to transition out of making single use plastic bags because as stated here these bags are creating very serious global problems and doing so on a vast scale. We do NOT need single use plastic bags. What is required is some leadership from England to make significant progress in stopping the pollution and the death of enormous numbers of animals around the world, all caused by the billions of discarded single use plastic bags. At last England! In mid September 2013 and at the Liberal Democrat party conference Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced
that England would be introducing a 5p charge for plastic bags in England. Money collected from the charge will be given to charities. The charge will be introduced in 2015 (but after the next UK election). Nick’s party stated that the similar charge introduced in Wales has had a significant impact on the consumption of single use plastic bags where the use of these bags has declined by 75 per cent. The reasons stated by Australia’s Queensland Government for not banning single use plastic bags in that state, including a rise in the cost of living, are misguided and irresponsible, particularly given the government’s direct responsibility for care of the already damaged ecosystems of the Great Barrier Reef.
Want to get involved in 10 BAD stage one consumer product identification?
get involved Please email your identification of a BAD consumer product to phylands@creativecowboyfilms.com
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