Visitors wishing to find their bearings in this modest exhibition are greeted on entry with a huge map of Australia. The map, a plain straightforward thing, is not actually an exhibit. Nor is it all that it seems on first glance.
It is a map of Australia and in its brazen simplicity offers the continent with its original indigenous tribal names, languages and boundaries. And it is shocking to behold. Gone are Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. Gone are Queensland, New South Wales and the Northern Territories. Instead we hear the older cadences of Ngaun, Walpiri and Karaman. Jawuru, Mangala and Ongkamu.
This revelatory map (and in some sense all maps should be a revelation; liberating us from our well-worn routes) sets the tone for an exhibition which is as much about the wrecking balls of colonisation as it about the art and craft created by indigenous Australians.
Aboriginal art and culture was tragically, and deliberately, misinterpreted, ignored and vilified by western colonisers and cultural critics. The social, political and economic effects of colonisation on indigenous people in Australia continues to the present day, although since the 1970s, amidst the calls for civil rights, there has been increasing worldwide recognition of the value of indigenous art and craft.
The objects and artwork in the exhibition come largely from the British Museum’s own collection of Aboriginal artefacts, with significant loans from other British and Australian collections. Ownership of these objects is contested and the opening of the exhibition was greeted by a group of protesters demanding that the materials held by the British Museum be returned to their rightful country of origin. The British Museum acknowledges the contested status of many of these objects, evidenced by the work of contemporary artist Judy Watson showing plans of the museum overlain with prints of some of the items held by the museum.
The primary objective of the exhibition though is to investigate the relationship of indigenous Australians with the land and sea, and how they have explored this through their art since 1770, when Captain Cook landed on the east coast. Cook saw nothing in Australia but wilderness inhabited by savages. In fact he had come upon a civilisation going back 60,000 years, a land already comprehensively mapped by indigenous people through ‘songlines’; where Aborigines navigate across the landscape by singing songs identifying routes through landmarks such as rivers, trees or rocks.
That land and sea are central to indigenous Australian culture is clear not only in artistic subject matter but in the labels identifying these artworks, which firmly root the artist in his or her cultural, tribal and familial context. The men and women who created the works are intrinsically (or spiritually if you prefer) located in a particular landscape and language, in a way that most British people have not experienced for generations.
We have long ceased to be Shropshire lads and lasses, but each Aboriginal artist and craftsman is identified not only by name but by region as well. For instance, the last exhibit features Abe Muriata, a craftsman of exquisite basketry who identifies himself as a Girramay man of the Cardwell Range area. This is more than simple place location; it describes a complex relationship between people and the land itself which is at the basis of Aboriginal mythology and beliefs. When Muriata speaks of himself at a Girramay man he is telling us that he is from the rainforest and his spirit, and in turn his work, is directly of that place in type, material and usage.
There are disappointingly few paintings in this exhibition. This might be an attempt to redress the balance away from the well known dot paintings and to present a fuller experience of indigenous art and craftwork including domestic and ceremonial objects, baskets, boomerangs, diaries and photos. There is an astonishing pointy-nosed Torres Island mask staring balefully at its audience. There are shields sporting designs reminiscent of European cave paintings, one of which is from a battle between Captain Cook’s expeditionary forces and the Gweagal people.
There is also significant material attesting to the troubled relationship between colonised and colonisers right up to the present day; a photo of an Aboriginal man dressed as Captain Cook, protest placards from the civil rights movement, and photos of nuclear testing which contaminated Aboriginal land.
For visitors with little experience of Aboriginal art the exhibition comes in handy as a cultural primer, covering a varied geographical and cultural landscape of the Aboriginal art world. But its brevity means it is too small to sate keener appetites hungering for a more satisfying meal. After all, the British Museum holds more than 6,000 objects relating to indigenous Australia in its capacious pantry and they could have been more generous hosts.
What’s more disappointing though is the fairly lacklustre manner of exhibiting these works. The gutsy vitality of the Australian landscape, which fuels these artworks, is missing. Those elements of land and air and water, suffused with that piercing light, is nowhere to be seen. Instead, a tame controlled lighting and pedestrian approach to display has made dull even vibrant reds and yellows. I would have welcomed a chance to speak to one of the artists and the exhibition would have been transformed if the contemporary craftsmen and painters had decorated the space themselves.
So, what could have been a thrilling and combative display of indigenous Australia’s art, which promised liberation at its start, turns out to be a shackled affair. Given the social and political upheavals and the landscape that rendered these works, this is artistry dulled; only occasionally engaging the heart and eye.
It is a map of Australia and in its brazen simplicity offers the continent with its original indigenous tribal names, languages and boundaries. And it is shocking to behold. Gone are Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. Gone are Queensland, New South Wales and the Northern Territories. Instead we hear the older cadences of Ngaun, Walpiri and Karaman. Jawuru, Mangala and Ongkamu.
This revelatory map (and in some sense all maps should be a revelation; liberating us from our well-worn routes) sets the tone for an exhibition which is as much about the wrecking balls of colonisation as it about the art and craft created by indigenous Australians.
Aboriginal art and culture was tragically, and deliberately, misinterpreted, ignored and vilified by western colonisers and cultural critics. The social, political and economic effects of colonisation on indigenous people in Australia continues to the present day, although since the 1970s, amidst the calls for civil rights, there has been increasing worldwide recognition of the value of indigenous art and craft.
The objects and artwork in the exhibition come largely from the British Museum’s own collection of Aboriginal artefacts, with significant loans from other British and Australian collections. Ownership of these objects is contested and the opening of the exhibition was greeted by a group of protesters demanding that the materials held by the British Museum be returned to their rightful country of origin. The British Museum acknowledges the contested status of many of these objects, evidenced by the work of contemporary artist Judy Watson showing plans of the museum overlain with prints of some of the items held by the museum.