Wiradjuri artist Luke Mustafa Woods, who is based in Djilang/Geelong, speaks to Tim Gooden about his art in solidarity with Palestine.
Aboriginal artists
Alex Bainbridge reports that legendary Aboriginal activist Uncle Sam Watson has been memorialised in a new mural in West End's Bunyapa Park.
Mark Munk Ross is hip-hop guru Munkimuk — whose beats, rhythm, sense of humour and hard hitting themes have earned him the coveted title of “Grandfather of Indigenous hip hop”.
Mark has been working in a remote Aboriginal community at Brewarrina in north-western New South Wales, regenerating age-old fish traps that are the oldest known human-made structures, dating back farther than the pyramids of Egypt.
He spoke to Green Left Weekly about his recent projects.
Walking into any souvenir shop in Australia, tourists see the walls lined with Aboriginal designs and artwork. What is less obvious is the fact that most of these items are mass produced in parts of Asia.
Banduk Marika, a Youngu artist, said: “We’re not making those. Indigenous people, even Australians, we’re not making those. Who is making this?”
Aboriginal communities say the answer is corporations.
King Brown Country: The Betrayal of Papunya
by Russell Skelton
260 pages
Allen & Unwin
$35
REVIEW BY MAT WARD
The Northern Territory community of Papunya is known worldwide for its Aboriginal art. But this book by Melbourne Age reporter Russell Skelton paints a very different picture of it.
Papunya, says Skelton, is "a metaphor for all that has gone wrong with Indigenous policy since the 1970s". He says former prime minister Gough Whitlam's policy of self-determination for Aboriginal communities in the 1970s was "unworkable and unsustainable".