I must admit, I am all too familiar
with this concept. In September of 2012, my family and I took a ten
day trip to the Northern Territory. We started in Uluru, explored
Kings Canyon, stayed in Kakadu National Park, moved on to a brief
stay in Alice Springs and spent the rest of the trip in Darwin, where
we visited Katherine and Litchfield National Park. This trip was part
of a tour, and every day was spent with a guide and a group,
exploring different historical and cultural sites in the state.
Before the trip I was unaware of how much emphasis the tours would
place on Aboriginal history and culture, including art. It was a
beautiful, spiritual and enlightening experience, one that I would
gladly repeat many times over. I think this was because, for me, it
came out of nowhere. It was a complete pleasant surprise. My
education had sadly not included as much about Aboriginal history as
it should have, save the odd staunchly left-wing teacher who would
pop up every few years to convince us that everything we'd ever
learnt was wrong.
While my high school was significantly more
progressive than others, the system as a whole certainly fits into
Neale's (p38, 2010) point about racism starting in school. Borne out
of a fear of the unknown. Unknown simply because it has been absent
from their education.
At the Uluru sunrise viewing.
Was this trip introducing me to what
Neale – calling out the disparagingly uninformed – describes as
'real Aborigine's' (p36) simply because they lived in the North and
not the South, where I am from? If this ridiculous idea is to be
believed, what are we then to make of someone like Bindi Cole? In her
lecture, she discussed living in Victoria her whole life, being apart
of the Victorian Aboriginal community. Does this make Cole's art less
authentically Aboriginal simply because of her geographical placement
in the country? Unfortunately, Cole has stated that she has been told
this her whole life.
‘White people say what’s good.
White people say what’s bad. White people buy it. White people sell
it' (p36), is what Richard Bell has to say about the longstanding
inequities of the Aboriginal Art market. I experienced this firsthand
while on our trip last year. On many of our tours we were exposed to
some truly inspired art created by Aboriginal artists, both
established and locals creating pieces for tourist galleries. It was
so natural, so earthy, so different from the art I had seen
throughout my life. But the interesting part was the context. The
galleries and centres were run by white people. The books written on
the pieces for the galleries and centres were run by white people.
The tours through the galleries and centres were run by white people.
And the patrons of the galleries and centres were almost exclusively
white people.
Now, I don't know that there's anything inherently
wrong with this as all artists encourage exposure, right? I think
what did not sit so comfortably with me was the fact that I had not
been exposed to this sort of art much outside these galleries and
centres situated in remote areas of the Northern Territory. As
Neale's article points out, and what the proppaNOW group seem to be
instigating, is that the next step is bringing this highly
significant flavour of art to the mainstream scene too, where it can
get the recognition is deserves.
REFERENCES
Neale, M 2010 'Learning to be proppa: Aboriginal artists collective ProppaNOW', Artlink, vol. 30, no. 1, retrieved 10 May < http://www.artlink.com.au/articles/3359/ >
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