Latest news with #AustralianAboriginal
The Age
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Britain celebrates Emily, after hidden letter reveals it turned down Indigenous art
One of Australia's most celebrated artists, Emily Kam Kngwarray, will be taken to the world this week in a major exhibition in London – as a long-hidden letter reveals how Britain once dismissed the idea of showing her work. London's tube stations have been adorned with Kngwarray's vivid paintings of ancestral stories to promote the major event at the Tate Modern, the first solo exhibition in Europe to show her work. The exhibition, organised with the National Gallery of Australia, will run for six months and is expected to draw thousands of visitors to see more than 70 works including early batiks and her final paintings. But a letter sitting in a London gallery reveals the Tate turned down an offer to show Australian Indigenous art when Kngwarray was taking the art world by storm. When London gallery owner Rebecca Hossack asked the Tate to consider adding Indigenous works to its collection in August 1996, the institution replied that it was adding contemporary works but would not consider Indigenous artists. 'You may have noticed that we acquired a landscape by Fred Williams last year,' Tate director Nicholas Serota replied, referring to the famous Australian painter. 'I do not think that it would be appropriate for us to move further and to take on an interest in Australian Aboriginal art, any more than we can do the same for equivalent work being undertaken in Africa or Latin America.' Kngwarray, born on Anmatyerr country north of Alice Springs in around 1910, stunned the art world with her batiks and canvases after she began painting in her 70s. Her work now fetches millions of dollars at auction.
Sydney Morning Herald
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Britain celebrates Emily, after hidden letter reveals it turned down Indigenous art
One of Australia's most celebrated artists, Emily Kam Kngwarray, will be taken to the world this week in a major exhibition in London – as a long-hidden letter reveals how Britain once dismissed the idea of showing her work. London's tube stations have been adorned with Kngwarray's vivid paintings of ancestral stories to promote the major event at the Tate Modern, the first solo exhibition in Europe to show her work. The exhibition, organised with the National Gallery of Australia, will run for six months and is expected to draw thousands of visitors to see more than 70 works including early batiks and her final paintings. But a letter sitting in a London gallery reveals the Tate turned down an offer to show Australian Indigenous art when Kngwarray was taking the art world by storm. When London gallery owner Rebecca Hossack asked the Tate to consider adding Indigenous works to its collection in August 1996, the institution replied that it was adding contemporary works but would not consider Indigenous artists. 'You may have noticed that we acquired a landscape by Fred Williams last year,' Tate director Nicholas Serota replied, referring to the famous Australian painter. 'I do not think that it would be appropriate for us to move further and to take on an interest in Australian Aboriginal art, any more than we can do the same for equivalent work being undertaken in Africa or Latin America.' Kngwarray, born on Anmatyerr country north of Alice Springs in around 1910, stunned the art world with her batiks and canvases after she began painting in her 70s. Her work now fetches millions of dollars at auction.
Time of India
08-07-2025
- General
- Time of India
Learning To Walk The Walk
By Jug Suraiya Walk the walk has become a popular trope, meaning practise what you preach. But walking the walk has other, more consequential meanings. In the Australian Aboriginal community the 'walkabout' is a traditional rite of passage, a coming of age from youth to adulthood, which requires the adolescent male to go alone into the bleak desolation of the Outback following the 'Songlines', the trails in the bush left by generations of his forebears. More than a trial of physical and mental endurance, the walkabout is the initiation of an individual seeking a sense of oneness with the land of his ancestral legacy, a holy communion linking a single consciousness with the universal. In contemporary investment idiom Random Walk Theory refers to the principle of unpredictability that underlies the rise and fall of stock markets. An often used analogy for this is that of an inebriate who wanders aimlessly about and ends up not knowing where he is. Stock market analysis apart, Random Walk Theory is used in a number of disciplines, from the sociology of group behaviour to devising military strategy. However, as cognitive scientist Alexandra Horowitz shows us in her delightful book, On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes , we don't have to venture into the Australian wilderness, or be a market analyst, or military strategist, to learn new ways to walk the walk. Horowitz begins her walkabout of discovery by noting how our ability of mental concentration, of focusing and harnessing our minds to immediate tasks, enables us to get on in the practical, workaday world. But this laser-like concentration also blinkers us and narrows our field of outer and inner vision. By the act of reading, you are 'marshalling your attention to these words…You are ignoring the vast majority of what is happening around you…The events unfolding in your body, in the distance, and right in front of you'. So, while concentrating on reading, or anything else, is essential for us to get on with everyday living, it also makes us literally lose sight of a world unseen and unlived. Horowitz explores this unlived world by taking eleven walks of the same block of her native New York City with eleven different companions, ranging from Pumpernickel, her 'curly-haired, sage, mixed breed' canine buddy, to an artist, a geologist, and other 'Experts', each with a different way of seeing the same things. 'Minor clashes between my dog's preferences as to where and how a walk should proceed and my own indicated that I was experiencing…an entirely different block than my dog…I had become a sleeper on the sidewalk…what my dog showed me was that my attention invited…inattention to everything else'. Horowitz's walks became excursions into the art of observation, of seeing with a fresh set of eyes. 'Together, we became investigators of the ordinary…in this way, the familiar becomes unfamiliar, and the old the new.' The next time you go for a customary stroll, make it uncustomary by taking along a walking companion, with two legs or four. Who knows what new world, or worlds, you might find yourself in. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Otago Daily Times
07-07-2025
- Otago Daily Times
Wildlife shines on Gold Coast
Even in winter, the sun-soaked shores of the Gold Coast have enough to keep even the most reluctant of surfers entertained, writes Tim Scott. For this predominantly land-based and heat-adverse journalist, Queensland's Gold Coast — known for its world-famous beaches and surfing fanaticism — was not particularly high on my travel agenda. Were it not winter, it would be the last place you would find me. But despite a proclivity for the cold plains and Gothic vistas of my Otago homeland, across the Ditch I was pleasantly surprised by the range of activities at my disposal which involved keeping two feet planted firmly on dry land. Within a single jam-packed day, I was immersed in Australian Aboriginal culture, had a (literal) taste of nature, introduced myself to the native wildlife and sampled the area's luxury accommodation and hospitality offerings. A quick taxi from my beachfront accommodation, Tessa's on the Beach, in Bilinga, brought me to the small swimming hotspot of Talle (Tallebudgera) Creek. The driver tells me people jump into the creek in the summer from the nearby bridge. Sandwiched between Palm Beach to the south and Burleigh Beach to the north, it is a more sheltered and low-key coastal retreat. With a helping of sweet potato fries from the nearby Custard Canteen to start the day, a brief stroll over the aforementioned bridge to the other side of the creek brought me to the Jellurgal Aboriginal Cultural Centre — right next to Burleigh Head National Park — for a walkabout tour. I am introduced to a brief history about the Yugambeh people and the local Kombumerri clan and learn "talle" translates in Yugambeh to "fish", and "jellurgal" means "honeycomb". My guide points towards a mountain visible on the horizon beyond the bridge known as Wollumbin, meaning "cloud catcher", or Mt Warning, which is the first place in all of Australia to see the sunlight every morning. On our journey, I sample some bush tucker including lilly pilly. It has the sourness of a green apple, in contract with the native sarsaparilla berries, which are aptly described as having the texture of the dehydrated peas in two-minute noodles. Later I sit down under a tree on a seaside embankment to be told an Aboriginal dreamtime story, or creation story. I hear of Javreen the giant Aboriginal man and his war club, and the formation of what would become the Gold Coast. Listening to this story under the shade as surfers splash into the ocean and a warm breeze passes over us, I could stay here forever. Having made our way through the national park, the walkabout concludes at Burleigh Heads, where the landscape opens up into towering high-rises and the golden expanse of Burleigh Beach. For some light retail therapy or a coffee fix, James St is a short walk away. One of the more recent additions to the area is the Mondrian Gold Coast. With 11 locations around the world including in Los Angeles, Ibiza and Hong Kong, the 24-storey five-star hotel marks the global hospitality chain's debut, not just in Queensland, but all of Australia. I am told it opened about three weeks before my visit. It is one half of a two-tower development, the other being a residential complex. The interior was designed in a coastal palette with natural finishes to resemble an old European building, to give the impression it could have been open for a hundred years, or is run by some old Greek grandfather. To contrast, its dimly lit corridors are to make guests feel as though they are traversing a cave or some passageway before emerging into their well-lit ocean view room. The hotel also boasts two restaurants and its bio wellness-focused CIEL Spa. It is kitted out with all the bells and whistles, such as a cryo-therapy float tank, red light bed and a healing Himalayan salt room. I dine at the in-house seafood restaurant, Haven, which continues the hotel's European influence with wicker chairs and ceiling fans. I have a tuna nicoise ($38) and a charred lemon and thyme house soda ($12), topped off with the restaurant's "signature" pavlova ($20). The latter arrives constructed upon the plate in a ring-like shape with a lemon sauce. Despite the dispute over which southern nation the meringuey dessert originates from, I am yet to see a pavlova from New Zealand engineered in such a manner. Worth a taste — at least for the novelty. The highlight of my trip was the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. It was founded in 1947 by, of all people, New Zealander Alex Griffiths on his family property — the 27ha later given to the National Trust of Australia (Queensland) and enshrined as a not-for-profit organisation. A local beekeeper and flower grower, Griffiths began feeding wild rainbow lorikeets the honey from his beehives in a bid to stop them feasting on his gladioli blooms. His morning and afternoon routine of feeding the lorikeets has since been preserved as tradition at the sanctuary, remaining a key attraction to this day. It is open to the public and the feeding is free to watch. The money the sanctuary does make goes towards funding conservation projects and running its wildlife hospital. Griffiths' own miniature steam train also remains at the sanctuary, in addition to two diesel trains which transport visitors around the property. As per the employee handbook, staff are required to wave and smile at every passing train. But what about the animals? The sanctuary is home to more than 1100 animals — most native Australian species — including red panda, capybaras, dingoes, Tasmanian devils, macaws and lemurs. The resident critters I met up close included "Curly" the emu and "Rhubarb" the joey. Despite his mawkish appearance and awkward frame, I am reassured that Curly is "a big flirt". And the deep rumbling sound he makes is his way of letting people know he is happy, just like a purring cat. The sanctuary also comes with its own koala nursery. The endangered marsupials are on track to be extinct in this part of Australia by 2050, mainly due to chlamydial disease, and the sanctuary is actively involved in efforts to protect them. A five-year vaccine research trial at the wildlife hospital is about to wrap up, which also tends to about 450 injured koalas a year, as the nursery focuses on breeding a strong genetic population. Other attractions include an indigenous culture show every afternoon and a Zipline course over nine freshwater crocodiles dubbed the "Croc Shock". It also has a fantastic gift shop — as any good zoo should. I later returned to the wildlife sanctuary, this time under the cover of darkness, to experience its recently opened multi-sensory light and sound experience, Astra Lumina. The premise is an "enchanted night walk amongst the stars" through 10 distinct stops in the sanctuary. It is about a 1.5km bushland walk and touted as the first of its kind in the southern hemisphere. Odds are, you will not see any wildlife on this walk — instead illuminated "stars" and other projections accompanied by a synchronised soundscape. While essentially a set of fancy flashing lights, these are impressive technical feats that make the most of the sanctuary's natural scenery. Lasers and pulsing orbs of light penetrated the thicket as alien-like sonars wailed in the night. At one point, the musical score combined with a ripple of gentle flickering lights made me feel like I was in a Disney movie. At times mysterious, others magical, Astra Lumina is a fun and uncomplicated little experience you can savour at a snail's pace, as I did. You can also buy some "Milky Way" hot chocolate to take along on your lunar voyage. What a great idea — and one space explorers of all ages will enjoy.
New Indian Express
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
A confluence of Legacies
Recounting their two-year-long journey, Govind explains how the project started with translating woodwork – over 77 of their sacred arts into woodblock. 'The work involved translating BWC's traditional artwork into woodblock prints, an Indian traditional technique that is new for Australian Aboriginal artists,' she notes. When asked about what made the project a good nominee, Govind notes, 'When creating a design roadmap, we have to be careful about the cultural significance of what we are interpreting. It is like translating a legacy. Secondly, we had to map out their design language and translate it into our traditional woodblock and fabric techniques, which quite often requires some changing of the way we print,' she says. Amidst the excitement of the work, Govind recalls the key challenges saying, 'In our studio, most speak Hindi, and similarly, people in Arnhem speak 14 different languages and tribal dialects. And for both of us, English is a fourth language.' For BWC, even though printing on textiles was familiar, woodblock printing was a concept completely new. As Govind explains, 'Woodblock printing allows us to preserve the prints for much longer than lino. Over the past three decades, the BWC had been using lino [linoleum], which disintegrates as it is like rubber.'
