The art of Station Time: the Aboriginal experience of pastoralism in Australia

Abstract

From the 1800s to the 1970s, Australian Aboriginal people were employed to work on cattle and sheep stations across the north of the country. While historians argue over whether the relationship of these labourers was a form of indenture or slavery, artists testify to the various experiences of this long period of Australian history. Ceremonial life adapted to the arrival of new animals and stations with new song-cycles that incorporated the dancing figures of cattle and station ‘bosses’. Art that survives from the period including incised shields and drawings evidence both ceremonial life and frontier violence. Today the ex-stockman Alan Griffiths memorializes Station Time with heroic paintings of rounding up cattle, while the younger artist Dale Harding commemorates the punishment of women forced into domestic service on stations. These artists testify to the ways that Aboriginal workers experienced pastoralism, the industry that drove the invasion and settlement of the greater part of Australia. On the one hand, these artworks testify to the violence and suffering endured by workers, while on the other, they celebrate the autonomy that Aboriginal people achieved through their excellence in labour. Indeed, as Aboriginal people moved into positions as head stockmen, they themselves become the bosses of non-indigenous workers. In this way, the art history of Station Time revises the history of Aboriginal Australia as one of indenture, slavery, suffering and violence, giving rise to a more nuanced history of the Aboriginal experience of pastoralism.