Djon Mundine BANDJALUNG

Aboriginal people are everywhere, and Aboriginal people do everything. The history of First Peoples is constructed of named human beings, with their own adventures, endeavours and personalities, at particular sites and times across the continent now called Australia.

It is my art practice to bring these invisible in plain view Aboriginal individuals into the light.

Before the white man set foot in Australia, my Ancestors, had kings in their own right, and I; Aboriginal King Burraga, am a direct descendant of the royal line …

The Black man sticks to his brothers and always keeps their rules, which were laid down before the white man set foot upon these shores. One of the greatest laws among the Aboriginals was to love one another, and he always kept to this law. Where will you find a white man or a white woman today that will say I love my neighbour? It quite amuses me to hear people say they don’t like the Black man ... but he’s damn glad to live in a Black man’s country all the same!

I’m calling a corroboree of all the natives of New South Wales to send a petition to the King in an endeavour to improve our conditions.

All the Black man wants is representation in parliament.

There is also plenty of fish in the river for us all, and land to grow all we want.

One hundred and fifty years ago the Aboriginals owned Australia and today he demands more than the white man’s charity.

He wants the right to live!

King Burraga – Joe Anderson, Salt Pan Creek, 1933.

Djon Mundine was art and craft adviser at Milingimbi in 1979 and curator at Bula Bula Arts, Ramingining, Arnhem Land Aboriginal communities for sixteen years. In this time of regular attendance at large scale ceremonies and every day rituals, he was made aware of ethical behaviour, protocols, rules, and responsibilities, and group collaboration. Here Djon originated what has been described as “one of the greatest pieces of art ever to be created in this country”, the Aboriginal Memorial, comprising 200 painted poles by 43 artists from Ramingining and surrounds, each symbolising a year since the 1788 British invasion. The Memorial was central to the 1988 Biennale of Sydney and is on permanent display at the National Gallery of Australia.

All the Black man wants is representation in parliament, 2022 Synthetic polymer paint on canvas Collection of the artist

In collab. with Annemaree Dalziel, McCallum Mundine (Yorta Yorta/Bundjalung/ Gamilaraay/Yuin), Charleene Mundine (Bundjalung/Yuin/Kamilaroi/Anaiwan)

Djon Mundine has held senior curatorial positions in national and international institutions including the National Museum of Australia, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Campbelltown Art Centre and Queensland Art Gallery, while also working with regional and community based organisations across Australia.

A passionate advocate for self-determination, in 1987 Djon was an active founding member of the Association of Northern, Kimberley and Arnhem Aboriginal Artists (ANKAAA). The peak advocacy and support agency for Aboriginal artists working individually and through 48 remote art centres spread across a vast area of approximately 1 million square kilometres). This organisation was founded as a strategy to ensure that the evolution and creation of Aboriginal art be determined by culturally active Aboriginal communities, not by bureaucracies in cities, or commercial galleries. Lifting the scale of public funding to Aboriginal art was central to this aim, as well as supporting the release of positive memories for Aboriginal people generally, used as an educative tool in consciousness raising for the Australian non-Aboriginal population, conveying another history.

Recent work as an independent curator includes exhibitions such as The dingo project (2022) an exhibition that opened the Ngunungula Regional Gallery, Bowral, Three Visions of the Garingal, Karla Dickens, Adam Hill, Jason Wing (2020), Fiona Foley: Who are these strangers and where are they going? (2019), retrospective for the Ballarat International Foto Biennial, Four Women: I do belong, double (2017) at the Lismore Art Gallery, Boomalli Ten 30thAnniversary exhibition (2017), Sixth sense (2016), National Art School Gallery and Whisper in My Mask (2014) co-curated with Natalie King for the Tarrawarra Biennial. Djon’s radical curatorial approach is exemplified by the evolution of the multi-award-winning performance digital-video projection installation, Bungaree’s Farm (2014), which toured nationally in 2015–16 from Bungaree: The First Australian (2012), an exhibition and catalogue of commissioned artworks by sixteen NSW Aboriginal artists for Mosman Art Gallery.

At the end of 2020 he created his own digital projection performance; Wali concerning the likely extinction of Australia’s marsupials due to criminal deforestation and the climate-change fires; at the Cross Arts Projects and the Casula Powerhouse.

In 2022 Djon became a recipient of a Samstag Research Fellowship and in addition was honoured by the National Gallery of Australia as part of their 40th anniversary for exceptional contributions to advancing the profile and recognition of First Nations art and artists in the national consciousness. He is renowned as a curator and artist for The Aboriginal Memorial 1987-1988 and for his deep connection and commitment to the Ramingining community and the artists that produced the two-hundred hollow log coffins which make up The Aboriginal Memorial. In 2021 he was awarded an Honouree Doctor of Letters from the University of Newcastle, and inducted into The Australian Humanities Academy. He was a recipient of the 2020 Red Ochre Award (lifetime achievement) of the Australia Council for the Arts. Djon became a Fellow of the Australian Humanities Academy (FAHA) in 2020.

His insistence that “Art is a social act” underlies his practice, cultural leadership and working methodologies, reflecting a contemporary application of sophisticated social technologies and diplomacy characteristic of Aboriginal society. Throughout his career, he has adhered steadfastly to a recurring theme: that Aboriginal people be recognised — as First People in all their diversity, and as part of the Constitution.

Contribution by Dr. Shayne T Williams (Dharawal descendent and nephew of King Burraga Joe Anderson), facilitated by Djon Mundine OAM, Monday 5th December 2022 video stills by Will Chittick