Okay I am thinking that I need to express myself a little more clearly because the concept of Aboriginal Art no longer being traditional or cultural art is not true. Firstly Aboriginal art is culture. It is and always has been the living visual language of Aboriginal Australians.
In the past ethnographers, social scientists and anthropologists have insisted that Aboriginal Australians are a dying race who no long practice culture, however despite these predictions Aboriginal people have survived. We have kept our culture alive even though it is fragmented it is still there. Aboriginal Art is used in stories, in handing down knowledge and history, in communication, in ceremonies and rituals, dance and song. It is our living visual language.
Today Aboriginal people continue the practice of handing down knowledge, stories and history through the visual living language of Aboriginal art. See it is not the artworks that are important but the stories behind the works, that is the important part. That is the culture.
Now we can use all the mediums, techniques and skills of modern day artists, but it will still be Aboriginal art as culture because each piece will have a story behind the artwork and that story will be the story of the artist him/herself.
Aboriginal art sells as traditional/cultural art of the description of ethnographers, social scientists and anthropologists because it is considered authentic, but what the collectors are really purchasing is the culture not the artwork. They are purchasing the cultural stories of Aboriginal australians and they know this.
High end artworks are pretty pictures for your wall. They look great. So when you purchase a work from an original authentic Aboriginal artist who previously was painting the ethnographic description of their work and are now painting beautiful contemporary pieces using bright colours, canvas and paint are you buying authentic Aboriginal Australian culture?
The answer to this is yes you are because the work will still contain the story of the culture of the person who painted it. So what I am trying to say is that all Aboriginal Art is culture so it should not be boxed, labelled and categorised because it is an holistic view of Aboriginal culture and because it is such it is authentic Aboriginal art.
What we need to do is un-tick all the boxes and re claim our cultural heritage using the visual living language of our ancestors that tells the story of the diversity and richness of contemporary Aboriginal Australia.
It is time to bury inherited historic ideologies and replace it with new beginnings.
Yep, that's what I thought you meant. Always the boxes that are the problem. And you know that's a patriarchal thing, so don't get me started on THAT. Because that's my hobby-horse. A lot of what goes on in my culture and what is trying to box yours is a male oriented view of the world. So I don't see My culture and Your culture as being in opposition here, because the feminine has been dominated for a few thousand years. I think this is why I can empathise with Aboriginal people, because although the issues are far greater for your people as a sub-group, they are really perpetrated by the same mentality and cultural philosophy that dominates them both. This is a generalisation of course because there are many 'men' within that who think differently. BUt look around, men are still running the planet and look where we are headed.
ReplyDeleteThat made me laugh. I agree the boxes are a problem and yes it is an inherited patriarchal thing and I shall leave that one to you....lol I think the feminine domination for Aboriginal culture may be distorted. I am not sure that we are dominated because historically Aboriginal women had a set job to to and Aboriginal men had a set job to do and old people and children had there job to do. In our culture it was everyone working towards the whole and there was no inequality. It was a shared society of working together so that everybody survives. I think the domination of women came after colonisation. Indigenous cultures did marry their women off at an early age but lots of cultures did that and they weren't all indigenous so I would not consider that domination. Aboriginal women today share equality within their relationships, it is just that you get the odd couple of people who like to belt the crap out of each other in public and anywhere they can so it seems like we are dominated. Aboriginal women enjoy their roles in their communities and I have noticed that the younger generation of Aboriginal women are more than in control of their relationships and their men.
ReplyDeleteI agree that men are running the planet, but lets be honest the truly powerful ones who appear to have the most input in society, e.g. Obama has a very beautiful and powerful woman standing by his side whom her seems to adore, this tells me he is probably more than influenced by his wife's opinions. We could suggest that he may be heading up the country but it is probably his wife who is advising him and whom he listens to the most?
What you think?
I think Obama is a 'balanced' sort of man so I agree that his missus has a lot to say about how things go.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't saying Aboriginal women were dominated, I meant that the domination by the patriarchy dominates everything on the planet, my culture no less than yours. I shouldn't include all of m culture because the Dutch women have a lot more equality as well.
The whole colonial thing is a patriarchal ideology though, overun everything, dominate, control....all about brute strength and numbers,. In our times it's money and political clout but in the end still dominating.