NAIDOC Art Exhibition 4 – 22 July 2016
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NAIDOC Art Exhibition National Aboriginal & Islander Day Observance Committee (NAIDOC) 4 – 22 July 2016 (Weekdays Only) Songlines: stories of the living narrative of our nation South32 building, 108 St Georges Terrace, Perth Government of Western Australia Department of Corrective Services Protect, Rehabilitate & Serve As part of this year’s NAIDOC week, the Department is displaying art works created by Aboriginal people in custody. This visual arts event is a strategic focus and allows the Department to prioritise partnerships and support the creation and sharing of arts with the greater Western Australian community. Through this exhibition of art works, the Department Commissioner’s affirms, values and recognises Aboriginal pride, dignity and culture. Developing and Introduction sustaining positive relationships between the broader Australian community and Aboriginal people is at the heart of NAIDOC Week celebrations are held across showing respect and acknowledging Australia each July to celebrate the history, achievements of those in custody. culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The Department‘s approach to offender arts and rehabilitation is to ensure For the Department of Corrective coordinated and strategic delivery of arts Services (the Department), NAIDOC is programs and initiatives. an important opportunity to contribute to our vision for reconciliation, to support I am pleased that this year’s NAIDOC initiatives that improve Aboriginal Week art exhibition is associated with the engagement in programs and to launch of the Department’s Partnerships showcase achievements made throughout with Purpose: Arts and Rehabilitation. the year in rehabilitating and reintegrating This document will set the Department’s Aboriginal people in custody. It is part arts course into the future. of the process of implementing the Department’s Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) by embedding initiatives, programs and processes that are culturally appropriate, inclusive and responsive to Aboriginal people. James McMahon DSC DSM Nearly 40 percent of all adult prisoners, and approximately three quarters of Commissioner youth detainees in Western Australia are Department of Corrective Services Aboriginal. It is therefore of fundamental importance to ensure that arts programs are competent to engage with the diverse Aboriginal cultures that exist in Western Australia. Front Cover – Artist statement: This painting is depicting the place where many goannas live and breed among rocks in Australia; rocks are a safe haven for goannas to bring their young into the world; rocks protect the young babies from large predatory birds and snakes, foxes, dingoes, etc. Songlines: stories of the living narrative Facility. There are a variety of subject of our nation exhibition matters and levels of skill, ranging from For over a century, images and objects traditional Indigenous subjects to first made by Aboriginal Australians were attempts by artists. Prisoners and young studied in terms of their anthropological people in detention choose to create art and ethnographic value and information, for a range of different reasons. It can be and not generally understood as art. as a means of self-expression to promote wellbeing; as a way to connect with country The second half of the twentieth century and culture; as a way of learning new saw a marked change in the way concepts; as a way to give something back Aboriginal art was presented, collected and to family; and as a way to manage complex understood. The specialised ethnographic thoughts and emotions. approach of looking at artifacts was replaced by genuine recognition that Visitors to the exhibition will experience Aboriginal art is not only important and an astonishing diversity, ranging from unique in the art of modern Australia, but works that are representative of current constitutes a different and unique way of contemporary art practice to works which looking at imagining self, comment on the reinterpret and reclaim traditional modes landscape and the spaces between. and imagery in new and exciting ways. Songlines are one of the many aspects Creature Songs of Aboriginal culture that artists draw on This part of the exhibition shows the use of for inspiration. Songlines are the creation imagery of creatures to explain a songline story lines that cross the country and in relation to a place, custom or spiritual put all geographical and sacred sites practice. Typically the creature is significant into place in Aboriginal culture. For in terms of totemic association with the Aboriginal contemporary artists they are individual, customary practice, behaviour or both an inspiration and important cultural experience. It can leave tracks to important knowledge. Aboriginal teachings explain locations or sites explaining the journey how the creation ancestors travelled across and be an integral part of the cultural the country creating the landscape, the significance of a place or part of a lived creatures and the law under which human experience. The creatures can embody the society is to be lived. The journeys of powers of ancestral beings, be protectors of these ancestors across the country make sites and customary practice. In these works up a songline. The broad themes of this the creature can also have associations exhibition reflected in the art works are with elements such as fire and water. Its landscape, creatures, people and spirituality. behavioural traits are integral to the story being told. You will see that the artists in this exhibition come from a diversity of cultural/language Spirituality of Song groups including: Noongar; Ngaanyatjarra; Aboriginal culture can be understood as Yamitji; Bardi; and various other groups in containing layers of meaning. People are the Kimberley. They have produced this stepped through the knowledge of their body of work in the months leading up to culture to increasingly more detailed and the 2016 NAIDOC Week and the works intricate levels of knowledge. When they are responses by the artists to the week’s are painting they can simultaneously theme of Songlines: The living narrative of address multiple layers, making a reference our nation. to the landscape or ceremonial ground This exhibition features art works from to the larger meaning of songlines. The Banksia Hill Detention Centre, Boronia art works in this section show the artists’ Pre-release Centre for Women, Acacia interpretation of some of the songline Prison, West Kimberley Regional Prison, meanings for them. Their statements point Albany Regional Prison, Eastern Goldfields to the importance of the story to them. Regional Prison and Wandoo Reintegration The Place cultural story of their people. These art The wellbeing of Aboriginal people is works reflect stories about a way of life, the connected to the wellbeing of the land. In stolen generation, hardship, discrimination Aboriginal culture ancestral sacred stories and ambition. They are about connecting are often passed on as songlines. People the past, with spirits, tradition and law. might specialise in chapters or sections of This exhibition is a beginning of our learning a songline which tells the entire creation about some of the stories provided by story that relates to a particular tract of Aboriginal people in the Department’s land. People on neighbouring land will have care. What the artists have included in the next chapters of what happened to this exhibition are works that depict land, the ancestors as they crossed over to their surface and movement, atmosphere, colour own part of the country. Continuing to sing and light of places, experiences and totems. songlines and pass on the stories nourishes They share experiences and history, and re- and refreshes the land. The works in this tell stories of creation, reiterate and remind section show direct experience of a place or of a continuing presence of Aboriginal an associated event which is significant to a peoples’ connection to the land; and their group or an individual. movements through the land. Vision of Country Art practice in the In contemporary Aboriginal painting corrections environment landmarks are often referenced. Some Engaging in the arts can change how we might refer to the hills or the rocky country see ourselves, and how we see the world. or sand hills. There are references both to This impact can be amplified in corrective the geographic nature of the landscape settings. The arts take place in education where the ceremonial site is located, as classes, drama productions, creative writing, well as the metaphysical ceremony that painting, sculpture, textiles and exhibitions belongs to that landscape. In these works of works. Arts projects provide safe spaces the artists show their personal experience for offenders to have positive experiences of a landscape or their interpretation of and make independent individual choices. a story related to a landscape. The works Arts in the corrective setting also provides often show pathways and some are similar a vehicle to address the reasons behind to the Carrolup style of work. Carrolup criminal behaviour which can be a factor was the site of a large camp for Aboriginal contributing to repeat offending. In Australians established by the office of the the Department’s approach to the arts, WA Protector of Aborigines soon after the priority is given to the development of introduction of the Aborigines Act 1905. existing partnerships and creating new The area was reclassified from a mission to ones to deliver arts programs focused on native settlement in 1915 and is renowned rehabilitation and reintegration outcomes. for a distinctive style of art by the residents of the late 1940s. A number of the artists in this exhibition are known for their art practice outside of Importance of people and the corrective setting and are influencing lived experience the work of fellow prisoners in our In Aboriginal teachings, the kinship lineage facilities. Whilst the focus of the arts in the of the ancestral people from country, or Department is on correctional outcomes, custodians, have responsibility for that it is explicitly acknowledged that there songline.