A journey from Dreamtime to Machine Time: Australian history through the eyes of Australian Indigenous artists

Abstract

Di Yerbury, a collector of Australian art for 30 years, started collecting Indigenous art in the mid-1980s as CEO of the Australia Council of which the Aboriginal Arts Board was part. She has since built one of Australia's best-known private collections of Indigenous art. In 1992 she donated 25 Aboriginal artworks to Macquarie University, whose Vice-Chancellor and President she has been since 1987, to celebrate its Silver Jubilee, starting Macquarie's own Indigenous collection. Works from the combined Yerbury/Macquarie collections, displayed annually in the Macquarie University Art Gallery and elsewhere on campus, were the basis of a travelling exhibition to mark the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and the planned (later deferred) Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in 2001. In October 2002, the second international conference of ICOM's UMAC opened at Macquarie with an exhibition from the collections and a floor-talk by Yerbury on which this paper is based. The term 'From Dreamtime to Machine Time', is borrowed from Trevor Nicholls whose series of paintings with that theme represented Australia in the 1990 Venice Biennale. The paper relates aspects of Australian history from the time of Creation, viewed through the eyes of some of the very diverse Indigenous artists represented in the collections. Thousands of years ago, long before Europeans set foot in Australia, Aborigines painted in caves, and on bark, in natural ochres and clays. In .the JudaicChristian culture, the Old Testament of the Bible tells how God created the world in six days. The Indigenous peoples of Australia and there were more than 500 nations (or language groups or clans) prior to colonisation did not have written languages. They conveyed their 'Creation stories' or 'Dreamings' through oral story-telling, passed down from one generation to another, in reenactments and sacred ceremonies and in their cave paintings. For example, the Gunwinggu people of the Oenpelli area, a small community in Western Arnhem Land, painted stories of the Ancestor Beings who, having travelled over what was previously flat, featureless earth, created the land, its rivers, mountains, gorges and waterholes; the food and drink sources it provides; and the people who inhabit it. The land is imbued with their spirit. They also * Di Yerbury is Vice-Chancellor of Maquarie University, Australia. Address: Vice-Chancellor's Office, Macquarie University, New South Wales 2109, Australia. E-mail: vc@vc.mq.edu.au 1 While 'the Dreamtime' refers.to a particular time, 'the Dreaming' comprises a continuing cultural and spiritual process. 'Dreamings' or 'stories/Creation stories' are told and painted of the history, passed-down knowledge and spiritual beliefs of the language groups or clans in Australia prior to colonisation, each using distinct dialects, body designs and rituals. © Museu de Ciancia da Universidade de Lisboa 2003 139