explainer | clothilde bullen
Three Gates Media
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Although Aboriginal artworks have been traced back more than 40,000 years, contemporary Aboriginal art is relatively young first being documented 41 years ago in The remote Northern Territory settlement of Papunya.
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The 2015 Western Australian Indigenous Art Award went to multi-layered video work called The Blaktism 2014,by Megan Cope, a Noonuccal/Ngugi woman from Stradbroke Island. The judging panel said “Cope’s dramatic ritual challenges concepts of authenticity, acceptance and belonging. It highlights the often unseen power that religious and state authorities have to determine and authorise identity and agency for Indigenous Australians.”
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The two museums that exclusively exhibit Australian Aboriginal art collections are rather far from home at the Museum of Contemporary Aboriginal Art (AMU), in Utrecht, and The Netherlands and the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia.
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The Burrup Peninsula, or Murujuga, on the Dampier Archipelago in Western Australia is home to the world’s oldest and largest collection of rock art. Impressive yes? Apparently not impressive enough because in April this year 22 sites were deregistered as sacred site under new guidelines in section 5 (b) of the state Aboriginal Heritage Act, produced by the state Aboriginal Cultural Materials Committee (ACMC).
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The five must-read books by Indigenous authors (according to The Guardian) includes Western Australian author Kim Scott’s book That Deadman Dance. Noongar man Scott was also the first Aboriginal author to win the Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 2011.
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