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Paris infused with indigenous spirit

By James Button

Musee du Quai Branley

Aboriginal art at the Musee du Quai Branley

20 June 2006 - The building is a chaos of hammering and workmen lugging tools. On the second floor is a travelling forest of cameras, sound booms and 50 or so jostling reporters. In the midst of the dust and din, a small Aboriginal woman is trying to talk about the stars.

"My father sang to me about the stars. They tell our stories," says Gulumbu Yunupingu, looking to the ceiling on which thousands of her stars are painted in white, black and ochre red.

"Before I came to France, I don't know you and you don't know me. Now here we are, standing on the same ground." Her voice breaks, she wipes away a tear with the back of her hand. "Your stars are like ours. It has made me feel like home."

Today, in the heart of Paris, 200 metres from the Eiffel Tower, French President Jacques Chirac, United Nations Secretary Kofi Annan, and Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, will view Yunupingu's painting at the opening of one of the most ambitious museums France has produced.

The $370 million Quai Branly Museum is the culmination of President Chirac's 10-year dream to build a global centre of indigenous art.

Quai Branly houses a collection of 3500 indigenous artifacts and artwork from around the world. But Australia's contribution is unique: apart from 107 pieces in the permanent collection, eight works by Aboriginal artists have been engraved into the museum's front wall, entrances and ceilings.

Through an ingenious system of mirrors and by extending the paintings onto the exterior window frames, all bar one of the works can be seen through glass from the street. Lit up at night, they make a 24-hour exhibition of Aboriginal art in Paris.

The Aboriginal contribution to the museum is so great that artist Judy Watson, whose work is engraved into the glass and stone of the front wall, says it is as if the artists "are swallowing the building. We are looking out on the street, we are everywhere."

Interest in the still unfinished museum is intense, with 3000 journalists from France and around the world scheduled to visit this week before Friday's public opening.

Three of the eight Aboriginal artists are in Paris. They are Watson and Yunupingu — whose younger brothers Galarrwuy and Mandawuy, the singer from rock band Yothu Yindi, are former Australians of the Year — and John Mawurndjul from Maningrida in Arnhem Land.

SourceThe Age

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