Ten Canoes and the Ethnographic Photographs of Donald Thomson: ‘Animate Thought’ and ‘the Light of the World’

Anne Rutherford

doi:10.5130/csr.v18i1.1827

Abstract

This article explores the genesis of the film Ten Canoes in the photographs taken by anthropologist Donald Thomson, in Arnhem Land, in the 1930s. Thomson’s images profoundly informed the look and content of the film, and the paper traces this genealogy in order to identify a ‘cultural imaginary’ at work in the film. I argue that a close study of Thomson’s original photographs reveals an approach to photography and to culture that dramatically exceeds the boundaries of the detached anthropological/scientific gaze. Thomson’s vision is a highly tactile one. His images are as much an encounter with the light of the world as they are a document of a time, an environment and a culture; his lens is as much an organ of touch as an instrument of observation. In a remarkable example of what Tim Ingold has called ‘animate thought’, Thomson uses the materiality of photography to make manifest a life-world in which reeds, water and sky are as animate as human figures. Not easily accessible to established criteria for analysing ethnographic images, such as questions of self-reflexivity, Thomson’s polycentric images profoundly challenge the humanist assumptions of many contemporary approaches to reading images. This insight raises new questions about both ethnographic photography and the relationship between the photographs and Ten Canoes.

Highlights

The release of the film Ten Canoes in 2006 has added momentum to interest in the ethnographic photographs of the anthropologist Donald Thomson, extending awareness of his work beyond the specialist fields where it was previously known.[1]
Stories about him, are widely known in Arnhem Land, where the 1930s are commonly referred to as ‘Thomson Time’.3. His photographic images are reputedly ‘the part of his work that Aboriginal people hold in the greatest esteem today’, and Museum Victoria, where the collection is housed, sees a steady stream of Aboriginal visitors
Thomson’s image of ten canoeists on the Arafura swamp inspired the narrative of the film, and his images and field notes were used as cultural source documents; for example, as documentation of techniques of body ornamentation in the 1930s—such as armbands—which were duplicated as closely as possible in the film

Summary

Introduction

The release of the film Ten Canoes in 2006 has added momentum to interest in the ethnographic photographs of the anthropologist Donald Thomson, extending awareness of his work beyond the specialist fields where it was previously known.[1].

Results

Conclusion