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50 literature Indigenous literature: spreading the word Although not yet as internationally well-known as Australian Indigenous visual arts, literature by Aboriginal writers is enjoying unprecedented national success, not only in novels, non-fiction (especially autobiography) and poetry, but also through plays and published scripts, popular song lyrics and public story-telling (as in Ochre and Dust, the performance in the 8th Pacific Festival of Arts). International renown may well come as a new generation of Indigenous novelists led by Kim Scott and Alexis Wright reap critical acclaim in Australia. As with other art forms, Indigenous writers have maintained a distinctive voice. They draw strongly on oral traditions, use 'Language' (from the remainder of what were once hundreds of Aboriginal languages), Aboriginal English (officially recognised as a dialect and displaying many regional characteristics) and kriol (creole). At the same time they experiment with and challenge forms, like the novel, inherited from other cultures. Indigenous writing can seem peculiarly adventurous because it is often emphatically conversational, apparently discursive, linguistically distinctive and sometimes entails the spiritual and the everyday in the same reality. In other words, this is writing that embodies customary modes of communication and belief. Not surprisingly such writing is sometimes tagged "magic realism", which might be adequate to describe its effect on white readers, but does not acknowledge the cultural complexity being expressed. Of course, the huge readership for Indigenous literature has, over the last forty years, increasingly understood this other cultural reality. Alexis Wright's Plains of Promise (shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, The Age Book of the Year and the NSW Premier's Awards) is a powerful example of the integration of the real and the spiritual. In Kim Scott's Benang, From the Heart (winner, Miles Franklin Literary Award 2000 and Western Australian Premier's Book Award), the reader engages with a voice that is familiar and yet alien, that of a psychologically complex storyteller unravelling a terrible history of the "breeding out" of half-castes, of turning black people white. Scott's story-telling feels discursive but is in fact frighteningly focussed as the past is re-lived over and over, with a striking immediacy and subtle shiftings of point of view. Benang has a rich Indigenous voice and it is a major novel deserving an international audience. The foundation for contemporary Indigenous literature on which the likes of Scott and Wright have built was firmly laid in the 1960s and 70s by Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker, poet), Kevin Gilbert (playwright, poet, anthologist), Jack Davis (playwright, poet) and Mudrooroo (Colin Johnson, novelist, poet). These writers combined literary acumen and adventurousness with distinctive Indigenous voices and political awareness. They created a new literary and communicative space for their own people, they spoke effectively to a white audience and they inspired new generations of Indigenous writers. A development in the 80s, 90s and into the current century has been the publishing success of Indigenous autobiography, It has proven hugely popular with Indigenous and non-Indigenous readers. The relaxed, conversational style typical of these works has made the form the most accessible way for readers to grasp the history of the Aboriginal struggle to survive. Sally Morgan's My Place (Fremantle Arts Press, 1987), Ruby Langford Ginibi's Don't Take Your Love to Town (Penguin, 1988), and Roberta Sykes' trilogy, Snake Dreaming, beginning with Snake Cradle (Allen & Unwin, 1997), are a few of the best known works. Also enormously popular, as Australians grapple with the concept and the means of reconciliation between black and white cultures, has been the 1997 seven hundred page Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission report, Bringing Them Home: Report of the National enquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families. Its five hundred verbatim reports of separation and its personal consequences take us back into the living tradition of story-telling. Other non-fiction has its place too. Just as Indigenous filmmakers shift with ease between drama and documentary and often blend the two forms, so do many Indigenous writers move between forms and genres. Alexis Wright, a member of Queensland's Waanyi people, also writes non-fiction. She now lives in Alice Springs and has written Grog War (1997) for the Julalikari Council in the Northern Territory. It's a vivid account of the traditional landowners' attempts to restrict the availability of alcohol and has been published by Magabala Books, Australia's Indigenous literature publishers. Sadly, there are too many writers to acknowledge in a brief introduction like this. Some appear in the essay on theatre. Others deserve mention: Archie Weller, John Muk Muk Burke, Melissa Lukashenko, Philip McLaren, Glenyse Ward, Lionel Fogarty, There are more. It is remarkable that in a mere forty years an enormous body of Indigenous writing has emerged, ranging from the literary brilliance of Kim Scott's Benang to a personal favorite, the poetic story-telling of Bill Neidjie's Story About Feeling told in his own Aboriginal English: If somebody take im your country, you'n'me both get sick. Because feeling...this country where you brought up and just like you'n'me mother. Somebody else doing it wrong...you'n'me feel im. Anybody, anyone...you'n'me feel. Bill Neidjie, Story About Feeling, Keith Taylor ed, Magabala Books, Broome. 1989. The Editors References Kevin Gilbert ed, Inside Black Australia, Penguin, Melbourne, 1988 Penny van Toorn, Indigenous texts and narratives, Elizabeth Webby ed, Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature, CUP, Melbourne 2000 Mudrooroo, Milli Milli Wangka, The Indigenous Literature of Australia, Hyland House, South Melbourne, 1997 Indigenous writers are well represented in the lists of Australian publishers: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, University of Queensland Press, Allen & Unwin, Currency Press, Hyland House and the Indigenous publisher Magabala Books, based in Broome in northwestern Australia. Ozlit website. www.home.vicnet.net.au/~ozlit/ Lists many Australian Aboriginal writers, provides brief biographies and links to articles and reviews.
new media Indigenous New Media: getting access Technology can indeed help preserve and disseminate traditional oral practices, but it can also act as a force for changing the content of oral narratives and disrupting the customs that traditionally regulated direct oral transmission. Recognising this problem, some communities have devised ways of using introduced media in accordance with their own traditional law. Penny van Toorn, Indigenous texts and narratives, Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature, CUP, Melbourne 2000 The history of Australian Indigenous people's engagement with the media of writing, print, radio, television and now computer-based 'new media' is not the expected one of subordination but, in many intriguing ways, of an Aboriginal culture adapting western media to its own ends. A famous account of this is recorded in Eric Michaels' For a Cultural Future: Francis Jupurrurla makes TV at Yuendumu (see references below). An important development in this phenomenon was the growth of community media centres like CAAMA (Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association), now one of many providing radio, television and CD production on their own terms, in their own regions. The results have been distinctive and empowering. The BRACS (Broadcasting in Remote Aboriginal Communities Scheme) media centres for communities with populations of less than two thousand five hundred people number over one hundred across the country, providing opportunities for communication and innovation. One example is the work in new media emerging from Yuendumu, three hundred kilometres north- west of Alice Springs and part of Warlpiri Media (a BRACS Regional Coordinating Unit). Writing about Donovan Rice, a young Yuendumu artist, Sue Angel comments that she sees his work with animation and images as "relatively free of western cultural values" and describes it thus: "His computer artwork includes Cyberman images of his own face overlaid and textured using Photoshop, Media paint and other software. The work is arresting and disturbing; here we have the traditional or stereotyped image of the Central Desert man overlaid, and distorted by computer graphics: the face, like the art, is both alien and recognisable..."(Sue Angel, Getting Connected, Remote area computer art, Artlink, Volume 20, No 1, 2000). Rea, an artist experienced in working with new media and a former member of the New Media Arts Fund of the Australia Council, comments that Indigenous artists most attracted to using digital tools are those who work with photography and video. Digital manipulation of found or family photographs with their own photography involves collage, superimposition, heightened colouring and play with text. It's not surprising then to see this kind of work figure in the first cyber Tribe exhibition, eyesee (cyber Tribe is a recent addition to the online fineArtforum Gallery). In a mix of local and international Indigenous works curated by Jenny Fraser, photographic-based work from Brenda L Croft, Rea, Brook Andrews, Jonathon Bottrell and Tina Baum features strongly (www.fineartforum.org/Gallery/2000 /eyesee/eyesee.html). When asked which Indigenous artists are creating interactive works online, Rea says that they are emerging. In 1999 she was a tutor at NISMA—National Indigenous School for New Media Art, organised by ANAT (Australian Network for Arts and Technology) in partnership with the School of Fine Arts, Northern Territory University, Darwin. Fourteen artists from across urban and regional Australia were selected to participate in the project: Kathleen Arbon, Sandy Carter, Jason Davidson, Jenny Fraser, Fiona Giles, Lindsay Haji Ali, Joanne Hamilton, Gordon Hookey, Clara Inkamala, Keith Munro, Carol Panangka Rontji, John Smith Gumbula, Karl Telfer and Christian B Thompson. The concept for the school was developed in collaboration with the New Media Arts Fund and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Fund of the Australia Council. Brenda L Croft, curator of Indigenous Art at the Art Gallery of Western Australia was appointed by ANAT to project manage NISNMA. The tutors were Rea and Cameron Gould, an artist and musician who runs Indiginet, an Aboriginal web design company. A special guest was Skawennati Tricia Fragnito (Mohawk First Nations, Canada), an artist and curator who has developed web projects for Nation-to-Nation, a First Nations Artists collective, and specialised in developing innovative multiuser online environments. ANAT's report explains the need for the project: "Indigenous artists with an interest in new media technologies often feel locked out of this developing area. This is in part due to the difficulties (both perceived and real) of either accessing or obtaining the equipment required to learn these new skills. This initiative expands opportunities for Indigenous artists in the area of art and technology, by providing access to appropriate training, computer equipment and software for the development of digital arts practice." The web can be used in functional ways, for example to market and sell Indigenous art internationally. But as with other kinds of community broadcasting it can also be used for social ends. The Next Wave Festival for and by young people in Melbourne in 2000, brought to national attention through its webworks program the artworks of young Indigenous offenders held in Darwin and Alice Springs detention centres (www.ourmessage.org.au or through webworks on www.nextwave.org.au). The site's title is "ending offending: our message." Each work is presented online with an accompanying text explaining its genesis and, often, some aspect of the life of the artist. The project was developed by Northern Territory Correctional Services. Using the web, the program aimed to speak across language groups, to put communities and offenders in touch with each other, and to teach visual arts and other skills. Sue Angel reports from Yuendumu, "The (ODN) Outback Digital Network, operating through the Yuendumu-based Tanami Network will soon link communities in the region into a high speed digital signal enabling internet and computer use in every community." Given opportunities of access, the support of funding bodies and organisations like ANAT, more Indigenous artists, whether in cities or regional Australia, will emerge in new media, doubtless creating surprising and innovative works. The Editors References Sue Angel, Getting Connected, Remote area computer art, Artlink, Volume 20, No 1, Reconciliation? Indigenous art for the 21st century. 2000 Eric Michaels, For a Cultural Future: Francis Jupurrurla makes TV at Yuendumu, Artspace, Sydney 1987, reproduced in E Michaels, Bad Aboriginal Art: Tradition, Media and Technological Horizons, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1994. ANAT (Australian Network for Art and Technology) www.anat.org.au Koori Net: Indigenous Australian WWW Resource Directory http://www.koori.usyd.edu.au/regis ter.html 51
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Page 3 and 4: new media music visual arts film th
Page 5 and 6: theatre Indigenous theatre: The fut
Page 7 and 8: Aliwa, Yirra Yaakin Noongar Theatre
Page 9 and 10: Kooemba Jdarra Indigenous Performin
Page 11 and 12: Black Swan Theatre Company Bidenjar
Page 13 and 14: Deborah Cheetham White Baptist ABBA
Page 15 and 16: Bangarra Dance Theatre One of Austr
Page 17 and 18: The Doonooch Dancers A traditional
Page 19 and 20: music The music of survival, pride,
Page 22: 22 Kev Carmody Kev Carmody is a key
Page 25 and 26: Nabarlek Band Nabarlek come from Ma
Page 28 and 29: 28 visual arts Millennia Indigenna
Page 30 and 31: 30 Destiny Deacon Someday I’ll fl
Page 32 and 33: 32 8th Festival of Pacific Arts, Bi
Page 34 and 35: 34 Julie Gough Nation: Palawa Drivi
Page 36 and 37: 36 Naminapu Maymuru-White Nation: C
Page 38 and 39: 38 Elaine Russell Nation: Wiradjuri
Page 40 and 41: 40 Joyce Winsley Nation: Nyoongar L
Page 42 and 43: 42 film Making bigger stories: the
Page 44 and 45: 44 Wesley Enoch Writer/Director Gra
Page 46 and 47: 46 Catriona McKenzie Director Road
Page 48 and 49: 48 Rima Tamou Writer/Director Round
Page 52 and 53: 52 Company/Artist Artform Work Arti
Page 54 and 55: 54 Organisations ATSIC (Aboriginal
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