...Underlying this linguistic fertility is a migrant intuition of the relativity of language, of the lightness and mutability of its phonology, inflections and syntax. Less portentously there is no migrant to this country who has not experienced those punning co-incidences, echoic repetitions, mutual misunderstandings and mishearings which are the basis of my scripts. It may be no accident that in 1992 Australian voices evoke first contact with the New World.
It is fair to say that the development of multicultural arts and the recognition of cultural diversity in Queensland is still in its early stages. Photos (6) of an event at the Cafe Folkloric.
Since the birth of Australian television, non-anglo Australians have suffered from an acute case of foreign accent syndrome. Unfortunately 35 years on they are still suffering, not only from bad accents usually spoken by Anglo actors playing NESBs, but from the dearth of authentic storylines and subsequently the lack of accurate representation of NESBs on our TV and screens.
The Australian National Gallery's library has just completed a project which documented ethnic and immigrant objects in about 750 photographs. The bulk of these photographs show textile and ceramic craft brought with immigrants to Australia or made in Australia following traditional methods and designs. Nearly 20 ethnic groups from Europe, the Middle East and Asia are represented. Photos of textiles included.
Palimpsest...Vision of a multicultural Australia. An exhibition co-ordinated by the Multicultural Arts Trust of South Australia, December 1990 Chesser Gallery Adelaide. Great colour photos.
The three storey facility looks incongruous in the ramshackle Aboriginal settlement of Ramingining which crouches along a dirt road in an Arnhem Land eucalypt forest 550 km east of Darwin in the Northern Territory. Photos of people in Ramingining.
Looks at the art practice of Fiona Foley (Thoorgine Country), Terry Ganadilla (Mewenbi Country) and Dale Yowingbala (Gamerdi Country), three aboriginal artists who worked together on an unusual project in Maningrida during 1991.
"I used to boast about you, my son the painter. You painted trees, now you paint squares to humiliate me." Quote by the artist's father in the early 1970s Melbourne.
Exhibition Review: Tandanya Adelaide South Australia January - June 1991. Interviews with curators Kerry Giles Kurwingie and John Kean. Images of inma at Ernabella included in the article.