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Acknowledging Tasmanian Aboriginal culture in our public spaces
An interview with Professor Greg Lehman
Pro Vice-Chancellor, Aboriginal Leadership, Professor Greg Lehman delivered the Dick and Joan Green Family Award for Tasmanian History Lecture in September, along with fellow award winner Professor Tim Bonyhady. Professor Lehman reflects here on the ways the University is rectifying past absences of Aboriginal culture in our public spaces, providing opportunity to contemporary Tasmanian Aboriginal artists, and welcoming community. Professor Lehman (BSc 1984, GraDipEnvSt Hons 1998, PhD 2017) believes that with the campus transformation programs in Burnie, Launceston and Hobart, there are multiple opportunities to expand the University’s acknowledgement of Tasmania’s Aboriginal culture.
“One of the things I’ve been very keen to do is look for opportunities for the University to rectify the absence of Aboriginal culture in public spaces,” Professor Lehman said. “The Aboriginal textile designs at Inveresk and at The Hedberg are welcome signs of this beginning to occur.
“We have opportunities to not only recognise the past, but support innovation and entrepreneurship into the future, creating learning places that are welcoming to Aboriginal students and community.”
Descended from the Trawulwuy people of North-East Tasmania, Professor Lehman draws on knowledge gained from his doctorate at the University investigating the representation of Aboriginal people in colonial art. His earlier degrees at the University were in the life sciences and human geography, giving him a strong interest in landscape and culture.
Professor Greg Lehman “I was looking at colonial land, not just looking as an art historian might … I was quite naturally seeing evidence of Aboriginal activity, signs of cultural burning, for example,” Professor Lehman said.
That was when it struck Professor Lehman that unlike the colonial art of New South Wales in the 1820s, which typically included Aboriginal people placed in the landscape as a part of a picturesque study, Tasmanian colonial art of the period is defined by the absence of Aboriginal Tasmanians.
“The problem is, in the 1820s, there were plenty of Aboriginal people still living on this Country … They were very active in the landscape,” Professor Lehman said.
In fact, a state of martial law had been declared against Tasmania’s Aboriginal population.
Aboriginal people were only reinstated into these colonial paintings once the last Aboriginal resistance group had been removed from mainland Tasmania to Flinders Island, “almost as a memorial to the sad reality of their removal,” Professor Lehman said.
“It took the political acts of the 1970s to reassert Aboriginal presence.
“The University, through the work of people like Professor Henry Reynolds (BA Hons 1960, MA 1964, HonDLitt 1998), Dr Nicholas Clements (BA Hons 2007, PhD 2013), Dr Ian McFarlane (PhD 2002) and other historians, has succeeded in creating a body of historical literature which fills that gap in a historical and intellectual way.
“But I’d argue that our visual history is still in the process of being understood … the work of artists such as Julie Gough (BFA Hons 1994, PhD 2001), who interrogates the colonial archive and searches out the ‘gaps and silences’, has started the process.
“And there are traditional artists working in more traditional modes who also provide evidence of Aboriginal presence through the continuation of ancient traditional practices.
“But we still have a long way to go. We’ve started that with the commissioning of Aboriginal artists to be involved in the fit-out of University buildings – the carpet designs of The Hedberg by Michelle Maynard and the library at Inveresk by Caleb Nichols-Mansell.”
Mr Nichols-Mansell said: “Our Old People lived in harmony with the waterways and Country they called home. These wetlands sustained life, provided resources and places to gather.
“This work represents the changing colours and winding flow of the river, and also the human interference and pollution that has followed.”
There is also a strong Aboriginal influence in the landscaping at Inveresk, where designers have worked closely with the Aboriginal community on concepts.
Professor Lehman said he is optimistic about seeing some profound design elements for the Hobart city campus.
“The University has a great opportunity for leadership on showing how Tasmanian Aboriginal culture can influence architecture – in the actual design of the building itself. I think there is a strong appetite for it,” Professor Lehman said.
Professor Lehman, who is also an essayist, art historian and curator, was awarded the Dick and Joan Green Family Award for Tasmanian History with co-author Professor Bonyhady for their book The National Picture: The Art of Tasmania’s Black War.
Katherine Johnson Palawa stories of smouldering banksia wicks carried in kelp-wrapped abalone shells are woven into the fabric of the University’s new performing arts space, The Hedberg, built in the heart of Hobart on the ancient grounds of the muwinina people.
The fire-inspired carpet design with its sprays of yellow against orbs of deep red is a collaboration between LIMINAL Studio (founded and directed by alumni Elvio Brianese (BArch Hons 1992) and Peta Heffernan (BEnvDes 1995)) and invited Tasmanian Aboriginal artist Michelle Maynard. The building’s external skin is reflective of a Tasmanian abalone shell.
Similar collaborations have occurred in the fit-out of the University’s new Inveresk library in Launceston, with a public commission by North-West Aboriginal artist Caleb Nichols-Mansell. Supported by Arts Tasmania, the design features grass-toned wetlands, the blue-grey of saltwater Country and kanamaluka/Tamar River-inspired ochre pigments.
The Hedberg. Architects: LIMINAL Studio with WOHA. Photo: Natasha Mulhall
