Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of Alcoa of Australia Limited, Governor, 1994 © Emily Kam Kngwarray/Licensed by Copyright Agency, AustraliaĮmily Kam Kngwarray Body paint: Awely 1993 Presented through The Art Foundation of Victoria by Donald and Janet Holt and family, Governors, 1995 Purchased with funds donated by Supporters and Patrons of Indigenous Art, 2004Įmily Kam Kngwarray Anwerlarr anganenty (Big yam Dreaming) 1995 © Weaver Jack, courtesy of Short Street Gallery, Broome Purchased through the NGV Foundation with the assistance of Catherine Allen and John Calvert-Jones, Members, 2004 Carmichael has used ungaire, a reed that grows in shades of pink and green in rugged, swampy areas on Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island). A traditional flat woven bag, Juno – Reclaiming beautiful Juno depicts the evolution of cultural practices that remain linked to ancestral forms. She was so called because she was so very ugly. When reviewing the collection at Pitt Rivers Musuem, Oxford, Carmichael found an old Pitt Rivers Museum label, which read ‘Coiled basket in buttonhole stitch. Juno – Reclaiming beautiful Juno was created in response to the labelling of woven objects in museums. Gulayi – Quandamooka Women’s dillybag is woven in the spirit of regenerating traditional Quandamooka weaving practices, many of which were dormant as a result of colonisation. The label that accompanied the bag at the Pitt Rivers Museum stated that it had been collected ‘from the scene of a massacre’. Gulayi – Quandamooka Women’s dillybag is a looped and knotted bag, inspired by a bag held in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford. Familiar masterpieces sit alongside inquisitive works and exciting new acquisitions, positioning the NGV Collection as one of immense possibility. These visual juxtapositions reveal overlapping themes and shared tendencies as much they do differences, encouraging audiences to consider the relationship between works in the Collection, both past and present. In the words of Yamatji scholar Dr Stephen Gilchrist, ‘the past is not inaccessible to Indigenous people’, but forms part of a cyclical order that relies on encounters between ancestral and present worlds.Įach of the artists presented has produced works that both build on, and challenge tradition. Stories are often rooted in visual iconographies that are simultaneously passed both up and down the family tree, ensuring they remain consistent even with countless retellings taking place over millennia. The extraordinary longevity and accuracy of First Nations oral and artistic traditions can be credited to the ways in which transgenerational communication has been managed. The works here offer a series of visual dialogues, in order to explore how parallel innovations and continuities can continue to inspire new ways of thinking about art. Since long before the invention of the written word, First Nations people have passed down important cultural knowledge through a combination of art, song, dance and story. Indigenous art exists as part of a continuum where old meets new, where materialities clash, and perspectives collide.
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