Cloud atlas 2012—and unhappy cultural baggage of Holocaust horrors—Kathy Temin’s white soft-sculpture Tombstone garden 2012—are valuable comforts and warnings. Our national anthem, Advance Australia Fair is not only about blond vegetation and seashores; it is also about human fairness and decency.
Indigenous Australia: the longest tradition Franchesca Cubillo Senior Advisor, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Our understanding and appreciation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art has grown substantially over the last fifty years. Dynamic and complex works of art
created by Indigenous artists, past and present, are no longer relegated to dusty ethnographic museums of social history, flora and fauna. Instead, today, we celebrate Indigenous Australian art as a living and thriving part of our national identity and culture. This ancient rich aesthetic was originally immortalised on rocks, engraved and embellished on ritual objects and brought to life on the bodies of ceremonial participants. Vibrant designs and iconic patterns were inherent in nature and made manifest by the ancestors, varying across the continent. The tradition of bark painting from the Arnhem Land and Tiwi Island regions is over two hundred years old. The Dreaming
narratives depicted reference complex title deeds to Country. These detailed clan designs were, and continue to be, delicately illustrated with powerful aesthetic resonance. The Western Desert art movement emerged with all its traditional iconography, restrained and controlled. Topographical in nature, these cultural maps of Country convey the ferocious episodic activities that occurred during the Dreaming. However, artists and community soon realised these works were far too potent for public viewing and chose to shroud the narratives with fine dotting. On Christmas Eve in 1974, Cyclone Tracy destroyed Darwin. A thousand kilometres south-west, senior east Kimberley cultural
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