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Activism in Aboriginal art

Speech to 'Blak Insights: Indigenous voices, new directions
Queensland Art Gallery, 3-4 July 2004

Jacqui Katona

3 July 2004 - I’d like to thank Queensland Art Gallery for the opportunity to speak here at Blak Insights with other eminent Aboriginal artists and Aboriginal art administrators. This is a unique event of high standing which has attracted Aboriginal people of vast political experience.

I’d like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of this country. This acknowledgement reinforces the historical fact that Aboriginal people did not cede sovereignty for our land. I’d like to acknowledge the traditional owners of this area, for their liberation is linked to that of my family’s and the family of all Aboriginal people in this room. Our experiences as Aboriginal people fighting for recognition of our rights is intimately linked across Australia.

In art the personal is often the political. This is very true of Aboriginal art - which often reflects on what it is to be an Aboriginal person in Australia today. The debate over Aboriginal rights to land in this country is fundamental to the expression of our human rights - Aboriginal rights - it is a requirement not only that our rights to land be recognised but that it be managed, consistent with our cultural practices. It is from the land which our law and power is derived, it is the foundation of our authority. Our land cannot be transformed as a resource, our land is part of our family, it reflects or relationships with each other, it connects our souls, it feels as we do and it grieves - as we do - when our connection with it is impaired. These are the issues which are central to Aboriginal art. This requires that the marginalisation and the inhumanity experienced by Aboriginal people be also expressed explicitly in Aboriginal art.

What is required in this country is a fundamental psychological change - to accept that we people are capable of devising our own structures, our own solutions, and determining our own future. This has to happen at the local level all over Australia. The reductionist process of politics will defeat every other attempt. We know there is genuine goodwill on the part of the Australian public for the injustices of the past - but it requires the hard work and understanding of every Australian before our future can be recast.

In our fight we are often labelled bad citizens - but it is not our aim to be good citizens - it is our aim to be non-citizens - for if our actions as non-citizens are recognised we will have begun, on our own terms, to achieve a new path which truly reflects our future - not a compromise in which we stand judged by other’ values and beliefs - for it is those values and beliefs which ultimately are used to determine our identity, redefine our past and dominate our future.

When I worked at the Aboriginal Arts Board, as it was known then in 1985, under the Dixon/Foley regime it was necessary to undertake guerrilla warfare in the arts bureaucracy. I say it was necessary because prior to Aboriginalisation of the Aboriginal Arts Board, decisions about arts funding was made according to a non-Aboriginal agenda and a non-Aboriginal view of what Aboriginal art should be. This was abhorrent to Aboriginal people. It had meant that the power to define Aboriginal identity through expression in the arts was determined by what white society would tolerate. Projects that did not expose the marginalisation of Aboriginal people were funded and it seemed Australians drew comfort from that. Cultural imperatives determined by anthropology and archaeology were articulated as legitimate frameworks through which Aboriginal identity should have been expressed. Yet Aboriginal society had been demanding the ability to make our own decisions - to represent our own identity - to articulate our cultural imperatives and for institutions to accommodate those decisions.

Was the Aboriginal Arts Board ultimately able to bring about a change in arts administration? Perhaps for a short period of time, however, before long we were osctracised for trying to increase the budget for funding Aboriginal artists. We received no support or backing from other government arts administrations for international art exhibitions, which by the way, often define the Australian identity internationally. Criticism and ambivalence from within the arts bureaucracy was one thing. The important question is: Did the arts bureaucracy ultimately accommodate the decisions of Aboriginal people and the agenda of Aboriginal artists within arts administration? - sadly the answer is no. Arts administration generally demonstrates a resistance to the accommodation of decisions by Aboriginal arts and arts administrators and this is often obvious in the extent of collections and programs of exhibitions - most of which reflect a Western desire to interpret Aboriginal art not a desire to facilitate the articulation of Aboriginal artists by Aboriginal artists. This practice, within many art institutions is actually institutionalised racism. This, in fact is what has contributed to Aboriginal art becoming a “white thing”.

For this reason arts institutions generally must examine closely their objectives and procedures in engaging with Aboriginal art and Aboriginal artists. Arts institutions must be aware that the practice of institutionalised racism is a pervasive one and must create the procedural framework with which to identify racist practices.

It’s common for non-Aboriginal people to believe that racism is a concept that occurs “somewhere else” however, it is imperative that institutions take a proactive stand to identify racist practices which continue to disempower and marginalise Aboriginal decision-making within institutions. I have found a useful example of the definition of institutionalised racism orginating ‘for the purposes of the Steven Lawrence Inquiry in England where, Justice McPherson stated the concept of institutional racism consists of:

“The collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people.

He went on to say that Institutionalised Racism

“persists because of the failure of the organizations to openly and adequately to recognise and address its existence…... Without recognition and action to eliminate such racism it can prevail as part of the ethos or culture of the organisation. It is a corrosive disease.”

This is not particular to arts bureaucracy, it happens in most bureaucracies across Australia. In fact I would go so far as to say that Aboriginal affairs is a conversation between white people.

Because a Western paradigm for interpretation of Aboriginal art is so dominant it results in two things - the acquiescence by Aboriginal artists to the dominance of Western thinking which degrades the integrity of their art, or the exclusion of particular artists from engagement by the arts institution. This tokenises Aboriginal art and Aboriginal artists for simply challenging the status quo - not just in arts administration but the status quo in Australian society.

On our terms this means acquiescence by Aboriginal people to the dominant theories of the noble savage. The recognition that our culture has adapted and is no less authentic than that portrayed by anthropologists has little legitimacy. Activism by Aboriginal artists results in bureaucratic structures being used to isolate those activists often labelled as bad, angry and unrepentant - laughably, as if this is not allowed in art practice.

In fact, this attitude bequeaths privilege on those ascribing to Western paradigms. The demand by institutions to conform - for Aboriginal art to conform to acceptability on Western terms is assimilatory. Aboriginal artists require the ability to access, act on and enjoy rights within our own dynamic cultural framework.

The major consideration here is that who has the power to define? Whose discourse is taken as authoritative? How is the dynamism and living nature of our identity represented? Any form of intellectual superiority demonstrates a neo-colonial attitude and frankly, is patronising.

If neo-colonial attitudes continue to find refuge in institutions in Australia it will set this country apart from the discourse on indigenous human rights taking place in the rest of the world.

We must recognise that the debate in this country about reconciliation is all about white people’s concepts of comfortable race relations and in fact acts as a diversion and a barrier to Aboriginal self-determination.

So if reconciliation is not the answer, the question remains how does Anglo-Australia help reposition the power imbalance? If you recognise the power imbalance at a personal level between individuals - what is your responsibility? If you recognise the power imbalance between our communities - what then is your responsibility? If you recognise the power imbalance between the two societies which exist separate and distinct in this country - what is your responsibility?

Well, I can tell you straight up that it is not about platitudes and promises. It’s about something which is a fine tradition of artists -radicalising society. If Aboriginal artists are not able to radicalise society with their works - if a challenge put by Aboriginal art and Aboriginal artists is excluded - this is a fundamental failure staining the fabric of Australian society. Our future, collectively, demands that Aboriginal ideas, representations and imperatives be accepted as legitimate. Is the threshold of acceptability so low in Australia as not to accommodate different ideas?

I invite the Queensland Art Gallery to take a new direction regarding Aboriginal art and it’s relationship with Aboriginal artists.

It is the Art Gallery’s responsibility to change it’s attitude to Aboriginal art and Aboriginal artists to reflect the requirements of an Aboriginal agenda derived locally within Queensland. It is necessary for the Gallery to embrace and legitimise Aboriginal people articulating Aboriginal art in every form and making decisions at every level..

In the process we hope that Queensland Art Gallery will join an enlightened and positive change to allow Australia to come to terms with it’s future. It does require leadership and effort. It does require challenge and meaningful, genuine discourse. Without these things Australian art will become the hostage of Australia’s broader insecurities.

© Jacqui Katona 2004

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