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Silent country

We walked on a carpet of stars

Sitting on the beach in North Eastern Tasmania (We walked on a carpet of stars Creative cowboy films) JULIE GOUGH and I contemplate Aboriginal Tasmania as we gather material for her work Locus which was to be exhibited at the 2006 Biennale of Sydney.

PETER HYLANDS: Does anyone remember?

JULIE GOUGH: There are lots of different layers of what remembering might be and I get a sense when I am in this part of Tasmania, at particular places and particular times that I have heard something that sounds like a voice and you are thinking what is happening, who is here? That’s what I think is possible, that memory can link you in to another dimension of people in place.

In a way being prepared or having some knowledge of the past can provide a bit of a key to understanding that you are hearing a voice, not a squeak in the sand or the roll of your water bottle in your backpack. Wait a minute, it is an understanding.

Making Locus

PETER HYLANDS: Why do you think we should remember?

JULIE GOUGH: I really do think, especially in these telling times of global torment, I really think that remembering can slow us down and we can consider more carefully what each of us is doing on the planet, to each other and therefore to ourselves. That’s significant and important.

When I was making a lot of art that was quite angry and related really strongly to particular events that I found in history books or newspapers from the 1960s, around the time of my birth, about assimilation and about children being removed ……. You become something you are not happy with……. I was becoming quite specific and it was a dead end street of feeling just anger with no release. And moving away from that kind of work and trying to inhabit a place and understand what has happened here. That’s what I think best serves me.

Now we travel to the very North of Australia to yet more islands, the islands of the Torres Strait, and to the voice of ALICK TIPOTI.

The Torres Strait

“We are known today as Torres Strait Islanders after CAPTAIN TORRES. CAPTAIN TORRES and CAPTAIN COOK, they came through Zenadth Kes (the Torres Strait). That is when we discovered them. They didn’t discover us, we definitely discovered them”.

The detail in ALICK’s print “Aralpaia A Zenikula” (courtesy the artist and The Australian Art Print Network) and the great skill required to carve the master for this work as a negative image, ready for printing, is remarkable.

Aralpaia A Zenikula

 

Alick Tipoti

What strikes me about ALICK TIPOTI is just how much he knows about the culture of the Torres Strait and how much he cares about that knowledge. As one of the Torres Strait’s internationally recognised contemporary artists, ALICK, now in his mid thirties, diligently speaks about his culture through a powerful combination of art making, song and dance as he blends tradition with contemporary techniques and media. His considered view of his culture is remarkable.

ALICK, recognised because of his great skill as a print maker, is now also making masks such as those featured in his exhibition Mawa Adhaz Parual at Canopy Artspace during the 2011 Cairns Indigenous Art Fair, in which Alick had created a room full of sorcerer’s masks, each a powerful sculpture from the Torres Strait, each a reflection of cultural memory for us all to share.

“My art is based on legends of the Torres Strait where I depict my interpretations of the land, the sea, the sky, and the many different living creatures and spirits that exist here in the Torres Strait – as with other artists, I use my art as an educational tool, teaching people about important cultural events, practices and beliefs from the past”.

It is evident that these works are guided by the cultural practices, past and present, of the people of the Torres Strait in which ALICK’s responsibilities are to document the stories and the songs and relationships that the artist has with his culture, from Badu Island and the mid-western island group in particular. These documents of culture created to guide future generations of Torres Strait islanders.

“We speak our language. I am 35 years old and I am blessed that my father and my grandfather taught me the language and I speak it fluently, I am so proud of it. Language is the core of the culture”.

ALICK’s language is Kala Lagaw Ya, Mululgal Nation. What ALICK understands very clearly is that language is the critical element that binds cultures together. Language is a precious cultural foundation in which oral histories and legends are kept safe. What is important here is ALICK’s leadership in describing the role of language in nurturing culture and heritage in the broadest sense and in enabling the understanding of the meaning and purpose of visual art and of other artistic and cultural activity.

This idea that language is a vessel that contains and nurtures culture and heritage becomes even more important when languages and histories are oral rather than written, as is the case for Australian indigenous languages. Language is the root of belonging to and identifying with culture.

When the song cycles lay broken there can be only trouble ahead.

So what is happening to indigenous languages in Australia? Of about 250 indigenous languages spoken before Europeans arrived around 140 are still spoken, of these well over a 100 languages are critically or severely endangered with often only part of these languages, perhaps phrases, in use. As these languages are lost, with them goes all cultural memory and important knowledge about place, about environment, about ceremony and cultural practice. Leaving what remains, perhaps the artefacts, the rock art and bark paintings, impossible to interpret.

Only 10 per cent of indigenous languages, the great knowledge tape of Australia, remain strong. On the Australian mainland predominant speakers are Arrernte, Djambarrpuyngu / Dhuwal, Pitjantjatjara and Warlpiri.

Central Australia

What younger generations of indigenous people in Australia do now is critical for Australian languages, those languages formed by place over thousands of years. Less than half of all young people who live in the remote areas, where indigenous languages remain strongest, can speak an indigenous language. Away from these remote places around 5 per cent of young indigenous people can speak their own language. This all puts what JULIE GOUGH and ALICK TIPOTI have to say in sharp perspective.

Despite endless international research findings to the contrary, the bilingual indigenous educational programmes commenced in the 1970s in Australia, are now under threat.

Policies such as those in the Northern Territory of Australia, introduced in late 2008 (and under review today because of the resulting decline in school attendance of Aboriginal children), that stipulated that each day the first four hours of teaching at indigenous schools must be in English, severely restricted the opportunity for bilingual education, further endangering precious languages and cultural traditions.

When I think about Australia I often think about the Aboriginal elders, imagine if your grandchildren were taught and spoke in a different language to you (and so did all their friends) and they could not speak in your language and you could not speak in theirs. That would be devastating.

Hunting and gathering in Arnhem Land

There can be no possible advantage to Australia in creating monolingual, that is English only speaking, indigenous people. It would be better to respect the enormous cultural and language heritage that still exists in Australia and to move to a new future of respect and understanding.

A bilingual heritage can be a great advantage in life, ALICK shows us how. For me my early education was in the German language and I have never felt that this was in any sense a disadvantage, probably the opposite, because through languages grow a greater understanding and knowledge of the world.

In many parts of Australia today ‘country’ has fallen silent, apart from perhaps JULIE GOUGH’s squeak in the sand or the roll of her water bottle in her backpack, or perhaps a distant sigh as the wind blows the branches of a eucalypt tree. The loss to the human world is great, let us stop it here.