Bruce McLean, Author at QAGOMA Blog

My country: This land is mine / This land is me

Posted by Bruce McLean ● 4 Sep 2013

Reko Rennie, Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay/Gummaroi peoples, Australia b.1974 / *Trust the 2%* 2013 / Synthetic polymer paint on wall; synthetic polymer paint on MDF / Site-specific commission for ‘My Country, I Still Call Australia Home: Contemporary Art from Black Australia’ / Courtesy and ©: The artist

‘My Country, I Still Call Australia Home: Contemporary Art from Black Australia’ examines strengths within the Queensland Art Gallery collection of Indigenous art and recognises three main central themes: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander versions of history; responses to contemporary politics and experiences; and connections to place. These themes are expressed in the three main Gallery spaces as the visual chapters: ‘My history’, ‘My life’ and ‘My country’.

The ‘My country’ thematic is the spine of this exhibition, interrupting, punctuating and reinforcing the claims made over history and contemporary politics, reiterating the meaning of country for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Hetti Perkins’s essay about the works included in ‘My country’ eloquently explains the inextricable links to special sites that these artists continually emphasise through bold and expressive paintings. Each work stakes a claim on behalf of its artist: ‘This is my story, this is my place. I have a dream(ing) that you will recognise my connection to these sacred places as you revere your own holy sites and places of historical significance.’ Every one of these places has been sung about and is still celebrated today in the same manner as holy and sacred sites in Jerusalem, Gallipoli and Kokoda. They are no less significant to First Nations people. The works sing their own songs, songs about place, deeds, ancestors and family.

Interestingly, some of the most iconic Australian songs and poems were written overseas — including Peter Allen’s ‘I Still Call Australia Home’ and Dorothea MacKellar’s ‘My Country’ — and illustrate how being away from home strengthens attachment to it. Many painters in central Australia were removed from their original homelands. Even those still on their lands have been tied to government-approved and administered settlements that are often away from the places of their Tjukurrpa,¹⁷ their dreaming sites. Likewise, a number of artists in this exhibition feel that same yearning for their motherland, painting in response increasingly large and bold works that simultaneously reaffirm their connection to these places and provide a financial means for them to do so.

Some works in the exhibition, such as Uta Uta Tjangala’s Umari Dreaming site 1983, were part of a push to return to ‘homeland’ settlements closer to sacred and ceremonial sites in the artist’s country, while others, such as Wakartu Cory Surprise’s Mimpi 2011, evolved from the collaborative map paintings used in Native Title claims to reclaim country. Some artists use painting to pass on sacred ancestral narratives through a collaborative ‘teaching and learning’ process. Ngayuku ngura (My country) Puli murpu (Mountain range) 2012 is the work of three generations of women: grandmother Ruby Tjangawa Williamson, daughter Nita Williamson and grandaughter Suzanne Armstrong. This work is as much about psychologically and physically ‘returning to country’ as a family as it is a lustrous, beautiful celebration of ngura nganampa rikina (our brilliant country), in the mountain ranges near the South Australia/Northern Territory border.

Megan Cope, Qld b.1982 / *Fluid Terrain* 2012 / Vinyl on glass (art work produced from watercolour and synthetic polymer paint on military maps with digital text) / Site-specific commission for ‘My Country, I Still Call Australia Home: Contemporary Art from Black Australia’ / Courtesy and ©: The artist

When combined, many works in ‘My Country’ effectively form a huge map, from near the Queensland/Northern Territory border in the east to the Western Australian coast. Each embodies a profound attachment to sites across the arid centre and western deserts, documenting a vital land, one far removed from ‘dead heart’ ideologies. Other works by senior and important Queensland artists tell of this state’s important places, while Megan Cope’s site-specific installation explores Aboriginal links to highly populated urban spaces by inserting (Ab)original place names on vintage military survey maps. Here, Cope worked with the landscape of the greater Brisbane region, connecting it to her Quandamooka (Moreton Bay and Stradbroke Island) people and grounding the exhibition in the country on which it is held.

The thread that binds all the disparate artists in ‘My Country, I Still Call Australia Home: Contemporary Art from Black Australia’ is a desire to share their experiences, and tell stories that bring to light their contemporary lives. From paintings and sculptures about ancestral epicentres, through to photographs and videos that challenge Australia’s established history, to installations responding to the political and social situations affecting all Indigenous Australians, Black life in Australia is presented in all its vibrancy, diversity and beauty.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have made an invaluable contribution to Australian history, politics, society and art, particularly considering the size of our population. Reko Rennie’s commission Trust the 2%ers 2013 uses an urbanised version of his Kamilaroi / Gamilaraay / Gummaroi diamond designs in pink, green, blue and black to claim space and mark territory, musing on their origins as tree carvings. Rennie, proud of being one of the Indigenous two per cent of Australian society, exuberantly exclaims ‘2%er’ in gold paint. Rennie is proud, and rightly so. All Australians should be equally proud of this section of our population, which has contributed so much to our lives, to our place. The works in ‘My Country, I Still Call Australia Home: Contemporary Art from Black Australia’ tell important stories from a crucial part of Australian society. The 2%ers.

Installation view of Reko Rennie’s *Trust the 2%* 2013 / Site-specific commission for ‘My Country, I Still Call Australia Home: Contemporary Art from Black Australia’

Arthur Tjatitjarra Robertson, Ngaanyatjarra people, Australia c.1932–2011 / *Tjinytjira* 2006 / Synthetic polymer paint on linen / 213.4 x 152.4cm / The Glenn Manser Collection. Gift of Glenn Manser through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation 2013. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / © The artist

Endnote
¹⁷ Tjukurrpa is used here as the most popular Aboriginal language translation of the concept of the dreaming, used in many languages in Central Australia and the Western Desert.

‘This land is mine / This land is me’ is an extract from the 2013 exhibition catalogue ‘My Country, I Still Call Australia Home: Contemporary Art from Black Australia’ by Bruce McLean.

Bruce McLean is Curator, Indigenous Australian Art, QAGOMA

My Country: This land is mine / This land is me

Posted by Bruce McLean ● 3 Sep 2013

The opening two verses of this epic song about Australian life, by Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly, provide an insightful glimpse into a critical dichotomy in Australian history and society — a dichotomy that is at the heart of the 2013 exhibition ‘My Country, I Still Call Australia Home: Contemporary Art from Black Australia’.

This land is mine
All the way to the old fence line
Every break of day
I’m working hard just to make it pay
This land is mine
Yeah I signed on the dotted line
Campfires on the creek bed
Bank breathing down my neck
They won’t take it away
They won’t take it away
They won’t take it away from me

This land is me
Rock, water, animal, tree
They are my song
My being’s here where I belong
This land owns me
From generations past to infinity
We’re all but woman and man
You only fear what you don’t understand
They won’t take it away
They won’t take it away
They won’t take it away from me ¹

Vincent Serico, Wakka Wakka/Kabi Kabi peoples, Australia 1949-2008 / *Carnarvon collision (Big map)* 2006 / Synthetic polymer paint on linen / 203 x 310cm / Purchased 2007. QAG Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Estate of Vincent Serico

The first verse, sung by Kelly, describes a white Australian’s experience tirelessly working a piece of mortgaged land to make a living so he can come to call it his own. The second, by Murri musician Carmody, voices his people’s immutable spiritual and physical connection to the very same place over thousands of years. Both make an unflinching claim over this land by jointly declaring, ‘They won’t take it away, They won’t take it away, They won’t take it away from me’, and asks if either claim is more legitimate than the other. In the exhibition, the artists present their own claims, countering existing ideas about history, place and society in contemporary Australia.

‘My Country, I Still Call Australia Home: Contemporary Art from Black Australia’ presents stories and experiences from artists of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage² that form part of a wider Australian narrative. The exhibition’s title recalls perhaps the best-known, ‘unofficial’ Australian anthem — Peter Allen’s ‘I Still Call Australia Home’ (1980). The song has been ‘owned’ by Australians and Australian corporations, yet the lyrics relate to a fairly specific section of Australian society — travellers and expatriates reminiscing about, and trying to re-establish links with home.³ Once part of a QANTAS ad campaign, one version featured an Indigenous children’s choir singing in Kala Lagaw Ya — the language of the people of the western Torres Strait Islands — even though most Indigenous Australians do not identify with homesick expatriates in Rio, New York or London.

The title, ‘I Still Call Australia Home’, also references the remix ‘Still Call OZ Home’ and blog post by Aboriginal hip-hop group The Last Kinection.⁴ This remix stemmed from their divergent experiences with the overriding philosophies of the original — their history and their exposure to elements of racism in sections of Australian media and society compelled them to contribute this poignant verse:

They invaded, degraded and polluted our land,
Stole all the children and raped our women,
But no matter how long or how far I roam,
I still call Australia home.

Their lyrics give new meaning to the phrase ‘I still call Australia home’. They declare that we, as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, have survived, we have not gone away, and this is still our land: ‘We still call Australia home’.

Finally, the exhibition title also considers the idea of country. ‘My country’ is a declaration used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and people across the entire continent to refer to the homelands their ancestors lived on before colonial processes and conflict caused their removal or exodus. It refers to the place their spiritual being and the essence of their identity still belong. Aboriginal artists often title their works My country — it is a simple yet unflinching statement about their land, where they are from, where they belong. In this exhibition it is a rallying call uniting all country that makes up Black Australia; but it also refers to the constructed nation — also now our country.

‘My Country, I Still Call Australia Home: Contemporary Art from Black Australia’ examined strengths within the Queensland Art Gallery collection of Indigenous art and recognised three main central themes: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander versions of history; responses to contemporary politics and experiences; and connections to place. These themes were expressed in the three main Gallery spaces as the visual chapters: ‘My history’, ‘My life’ and ‘My country’.

Bruce McLean is former Curator, Indigenous Australian Art, QAGOMA
‘This land is mine / This land is me’ is an extract from the 2013 exhibition catalogue ‘My Country, I Still Call Australia Home: Contemporary Art from Black Australia’ by Bruce McLean.

Endnotes
¹ Paul Kelly, Kev Carmody and Maireah Hanna, ‘This Land is Mine’, from One Night the Moon [soundtrack], MusicArtsDance films, Sydney, 2011.
² Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander heritage, rather than Australian or Indigenous Australian artists.
³ See QANTAS Advertising webpages: ‘This hugely popular campaign ran from 1997 to 2009 and used Peter Allen’s Australian classic “I Still Call Australia Home”. The song was performed by the Sydney Children’s Choir, the Australian Girls’ Choir and National Boys Choir, as well as the Gondwana National Indigenous Children’s Choir. Taken from http://www.qantas.com.au/travel/airlines/i-still-call-australia-home/global/en.
⁴ ‘Full story behind why we wrote “Still Call Oz Home”’, http://www.myspace.com/thelastkinection/ blog/417380956. ‘Still Call Oz Home’, The Last Kinection, (2007).

Acknowledgment of Country
The Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Gallery stands in Brisbane. We pay respect to Aboriginal peoples, Torres Strait Islander peoples, and Elders past and present. In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge the immense creative contribution First Australians, as the first visual artists and storytellers, make to the art and culture of this country. It is customary in many Indigenous communities not to mention the name of the deceased. All such mentions and photographs are with permission, however, care and discretion should be exercised.

#QAGOMA

International Day of the World’s Indigenous People

Posted by Bruce McLean ● 9 Aug 2012

basket_72x570 — Abe Muriata, Girramay people, Australia b. 1952 | Jawun (basket) painted 2007 | *Twined lawyer vine with natural pigments* | Purchased 2007. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant | Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | © The artist

One of my favourite things – Jawun

The United Nations’ (UN) International Day of the World’s Indigenous People is observed on 9 August each year. Today, I thought I would profile one of my favourite works from our current exhibition ‘Across Country: Five Years of Indigenous Australian Art from the Collection’.

The bicornual (two-horned) basket or Jawun, made by southern Rainforest peoples from north Queensland, is an example of the unique and iconic forms that were fostered in this small, densely forested region. The baskets are made of split cane, from the lawyer vine (Calamus australis), so named because of its numerous spines and ‘prickly’ habit (once lawyer cane has you in its grip it’s hard to escape). Making these refined baskets must be a labour of love and is a huge commitment to continuing culture, as the first steps are tangling with the vicious vine to produce the canes for weaving.

Today the eminent maker of these baskets is Abe Muriata, a strong and proud Rainforest Bama of the Girramay people. It may seem slightly odd to some that a man is the leading maker of traditional baskets, but in pre and early contact times, in many places men were the primary basket makers, while in others the skill and duties of basket making were shared equally between men and women. Sometime after contact with European social norms, weaving and basketry became ‘women’s work’. Today, Abe is following in the footsteps of other men from this region, such as Davey Buckaroo Lawrence, who have continued to make these traditional forms and continues to assert that this is men’s business, too.

Abe Muriata’s works will also be featured in the upcoming Cairns Indigenous Art Fair, 16-19 August 2012.

Another art history

Posted by Bruce McLean ● 9 May 2012

Unknown, North Queensland rainforest area, Australia | *Bagu (Firestick figure)* c.1930s-40s | Carved softwood with natural pigments | Private collection. Proposed acquisition for the Queensland Art Gallery Collection

The 2012 Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Appeal focuses on the acquisition of a group of rare icons of historical Aboriginal art from Queensland, made between the mid-1800s to the 1940s.

These works are representative of many of the cultural groups within Queensland and reflect the diverse artistic heritages of Aboriginal peoples from this state.

The work shown here epitomises the group and provides a strong argument about why these works should enter the Gallery’s Collection. It is a rainforest region fire-stick board, most likely from the area between Cardwell and Tully. This is consistently the wettest area in the country and keeping fire-making equipment dry was essential to everyday life. Elaborate fire-stick boards were made as part of a fire-making bundle that kept them dry and gave their owners access to fire. When making fire the board became a receptacle, into which sticks of soft-wooded plants — such as native guava or hibiscus — were rubbed to create embers that would start the fire.

In this particular area of the rainforest, the figures painted on the boards often represent Chikka-Bunnah, the spirit of fire who reveals himself in the night sky as shooting stars. Here, the fire stick board is known as Bagu and the fire-sticks as Jiman. The painting on this board, collected around the 1930s or 1940s, is virtually identical to the art produced in this area today. Recently the Gallery acquired a group of contemporary Bagu and Jiman from the Girringun artists from this region (currently on display in ‘Across Country: Five Years of Indigenous Australian Art from the Collection‘ at GOMA). Although the contemporary versions are made from terracotta and are much larger, essentially the figures remain the same, showing that for this Aboriginal group these objects are their art history: they inform their contemporary art and their daily and cultural lives as rainforest Aboriginal people today.

Betty Andy, Yalangi/Waanji people, Australia b.1942 | Daniel Beeron, Girramay people, Australia b. 1972 | Maureen Beeron, Girramay people, Australia b.1957 | Nancy Beeron, Girramay people, Australia b.1949 | Theresa Beeron, Girramay/Jirrbal people, Australia b.1951 | Nancy Cowan, Warrgamay/ Warungnu people, Australia b.1952 | Nephi Denham, Girramay people, Australia b.1984 | Allison Murray, Girramay/Jirrbal people, Australia b. 1967 | Doris Kinjun, Gulgnay people, Australia b. 1947 | Emily Murray, Girramay/Jirrbal people, Australia b. 1949 | John Murray, Girramay people, Australia b. 1979 | Sally Murray, Girramay/Jirrbal people, Australia b. 1947 | Ninney Murray, Girramay/jirrbal people, Australia b. 1941 | *Bagu (Firestick figure) and Jiman (Firestick)* 2009 | Terracotta clay, ochres, string and | Native Guava (Eupomatia laurina) | Purchased 2010 with funds from Xstrata Community Partnership Program Queensland through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation | Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | © The artists

The Gallery is committed to gathering together these works, so that we can present alternative art histories from Australia. Each work in the 2012 Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Appeal is integral to the artistic and cultural narratives of Aboriginal people from Queensland. When these works are viewed alongside the artistic heritage of European Australia, we will finally be able to arrive at a more balanced and truly representative idea of Australia’s art history, the artistic heritage of this place.

More information on the 2012 Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Appeal may be found on our website.

Across Country

Posted by Bruce McLean ● 13 Mar 2012

‘Across Country’ celebrates the vibrancy of contemporary Aboriginal art made across the country, particularly in the past five years. The exhibition highlights major acquisitions including some notable Jiman and Bagu.

Fire-sticks and fire-stick-figures or fire-boards are among the most important objects from Aboriginal Australia as they provided fire and enabled people to hunt, cook, eat, warm themselves and survive. Fire also played a central role in many ceremonies. It was therefore essential that the fire-making tools were kept dry, and nowhere was this as big a task as in the wet tropical rainforests of north Queensland. Here, people made fire-stick bundles which protected the fire-sticks (Jiman) and the receptacle board (Bagu). These boards in this area were not merely utilitarian as in most other areas, being elaborately shaped and decorated, often taking the form of totems or the spirit-god of fire Chikka-Bunnah, who is also seen as falling stars in the night sky. These boards are a unique aspect of Rainforest Aboriginal culture and today artists continue to make Bagu and Jiman, but have adopted interesting new methods to do so. The flat wooden boards have been replaced by full-bodied ceramics, lavishly decorated with personal artistic license, giving them a new life in the art gallery and allowing the artists to continue to practise their culture tell and their stories.

Bagu and Jiman from the Girringun Aboriginal Art Centre have been a run-away hit of the past three Cairns Indigenous Art Fairs and are soon to be featured as public art along the entire length of a 301 metre long tilt train. The artists themselves are looking forward to viewing the display when they visit the Gallery in April en route to their next exhibition at Suzanne O’Connell Gallery, Brisbane.

‘Across Country: Five Years of Indigenous Australian Art from the Collection‘ is on show at GOMA until 21 October 2012.