Past Programs
Visual Art - 2008
2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2002
Up north: Gali Yalkirriwuy Gurruwiwi, Priscilla Collins and Turtle Dreaming
15/11/2008
Gali Yalkirriwuy Gurruwiwi has won the Kate Challis Award for a haunting series of morning star poles, which have deep spiritual meaning within Yolngu culture. Also in this program we hear why many people up north are disillusioned with the new Federal Government. And we present the first in a series of dreaming stories, 'The Turtle Dreaming' from Maningrida on the north coast of Arnhem Land.
- Watch Turtle Dreaming.
Patrick Dodson: peace warrior
08/11/2008
Patrick Dodson is only the second Australian to receive the Sydney Peace Prize, after the former Governor-General Sir William Deane. The inaugural chair of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation believes open and frank dialogue is the only way to repair the fractured relationship Australia has with its Indigenous people.
We join Aunty Noeline Briggs-Smith, historian and archivist, who's found the lost graves of Aboriginal servicemen in the historic Moree cemetery.
Also in this program, the artist Tony Albert talks about his obsession with the uncollectable - Aboriginalia, or mass-produced Aboriginal kitsch.
Casting shadows
25/10/2008
In the history of representation, Aboriginal people have been defined by the colonial gaze - from ethnographic photographs to film - into a shadow of our selves. Today we present a talk by Dr Romaine Moreton on the Aboriginal self through the Western eye. She says through film, Aboriginal people are confronting and splitting the colonial gaze.
Dr Romaine Moreton, a Goernpil woman whose family hail from Stradbroke Island, spoke at the Black2Blak 2 conference held in tandem with The Premier State, an exhibition at the Campbelltown Arts Centre featuring Aboriginal artists from across New South Wales.
Also, the lawyer Terri Janke explains why we need a national authority with statutory powers to protect Indigenous cultural rights, from intellectual copyright to traditional knowledge.
And we meet Graeme Talbot Junior, the young ranger from the Northern Territory who's been nominated for Young Apprentice of the Year.
The 25th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award
23/08/2008
If the 25th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award is anything to go by, there's a flowering in the Western Desert and Arnhem Land. But the decision by a group of seven Aboriginal art centres to withdraw their artists from competition has struck at the heart of the awards, otherwise known as the Telstras. Has it affected the quality and scope of the work in the award, or has it missed the mark? We ask the judges and the curator of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, which hosts the Telstra.
Big heart: a tribute to Dr Marika
28/06/2008
The senior Rirratjingu clanswoman who died suddenly and prematurely last month has been remembered as a protector of Yolngu culture and a tenacious fighter for the right of Yolngu to speak their own language in tandem with English, a way of thinking known as 'both-ways' education. We pay special tribute to this great Yolngu educator, linguist, translator and public intellectual.
Awaye! has obtained permission to broadcast excerpts from the memorial service to Dr Marika held recently in her community of Yirrkala.
Also in this program, we sit down in Darwin with the new chief executive of the Northern Land Council, Kim Hill. He has a big job ahead of him trying to act in the best interests of traditional owners across northern Australia. But the former ATSIC Commissioner says he has no magic potion.
And the artist Vernon Ah Kee talks about Aboriginal beauty in his portraiture.
Writing black - and red
14/06/2008
We present a talk by two award-winning female Aboriginal writers. Gayle Kennedy is from the Wongaibon clan of the Ngiyaampa speaking people of south-western New South Wales and Cherie Dimaline is Metis and Ojibway from Canada.
They talk about writing about Indigenous lives at the Sydney Writers Festival.
Gayle Kennedy won the David Unaipon award for her manuscript which has since been published as Me, Antman and Fleabag which bristles with delicious black humour. Cherie Dimaline's novel Red Rooms won best fiction book at the 2007 Anskohk Aboriginal Literature Festival and Book Awards and has been described as the 'Native Rosetta stone'.
Also, Gordon Hookey speaks to his confronting and deeply political work at the inaugural Indigenous Art Triennial - and we mark the 20th anniversary of the Barunga Statement, which set out the guiding principles for a treaty.
Nana Lena Cavanagh: 'what a life it's been'
07/06/2008
Nana Lena Cavanagh is a senior Arrernte woman from the Central Desert community of Santa Teresa, south-east of Alice Springs. No one knows for sure how old Nana Lena is, but she remembers a vanished way of life.
When the former Catholic mission was overtaken by alcohol and violence, Nana Lena set up a womens committee. Despite her great age, she is a strong and active member of her community. Not only that, she once collared the former Indigenous Affairs Minister, Mal Brough.
Another stop on our series of Postcards from the Road, Santa Teresa is better known by its Arrernte language name - Ltyentye Apurte* or "little flower".
Also in this program, we remember the victims of the Myall Creek massacre.
And we hear about an exhibition dedicated to the world's largest freshwater fish, the Murray cod.
*[pronounced JIN-juh PAW-tuh]
Return to the Narran Lakes
10/05/2008
The migratory water birds that once flocked thousands of kilometres to the Narran Lakes have returned and so has the Aboriginal community after recent heavy rains across north-western New South Wales and upstream in Queensland.
Nick McClean takes us back to Gamilaroi/Yuwaalaraay country to see how the Lake is coming back to life.
Also, we bring you a tribute to the playwright Jack Davis and the curator Djon Mundine reads another of his essays, about an exhibition of digital art.
Intervention blues
19/04/2008
You'd be forgiven for thinking the Commonwealth intervention had reached into the north-western New South Wales town of Walgett, where youth allowance and Abstudy payments can be quarantined under a scheme designed to lift school attendance rates.
Nick McClean travels to Walgett to hear from parents and elders.
Also, we sit down with Jacinta Numina, a printmaker whose work is inspired by the awelye, or ceremonial body lines.
Something from the vault - the sparkling wit Anita Heiss performs her poem 'Token Koori' and we replay a speech the writer Alice Walker gave to a literary conference in New York in 1984, after her novel 'The Colour Purple' won the Pulitzer Prize.
My activist grandfather
05/04/2008
It was the first political organisation to represent the interests of Aboriginal people, but the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association has long been forgotten. Now, Professor John Maynard has produced For Liberty and Freedom, a history of the AAPA and its founder, Fred Maynard.
John Maynard joins us to talk about his activist grandfather.
Also, the writer Sharon Ennis muses about identity, self-loathing and internal racism. And we go to the opening of 'Lines in the Sand', an exhibition which features the work of Daniel Boyd.
<em>Kalkadungu</em>
29/03/2008
A 23-minute piece scored for orchestra, electric guitar, solo voice and didjeridu, Kalkadungu is based on a song which the master didjeridu player William Barton wrote in his language when he was 15.
The song was inspired by his Kalkadungu country in north-western Queensland.
William Barton says the song itself is about the passing of Kalkadungu culture from one generation to the next.
He joins us to talk about the new composition, co-written with composer Matthew Hindson, which is being performed for the first time by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra next week.
Also we hear Also, the poet Yvette Holt reads from her newly-published anthology 'Anonymous Premonition'. And curator Djon Mundine ruminates out loud on the significance of water and waterways in contemporary Indigenous art.
Please note that due to copyright restrictions this program is not available as a downloadable MP3.
