If the 70s is remembered as a period of nurture for Aboriginal art, the 1980s will certainly be remembered as the decade of its dramatic development...there has been an eflorescence of community based enterprises in the remote areas of Australia.
It's now early September 1989 and Aboriginal Rock Bands from the Northern Territory and interstate are travelling by any means possible to Darwin for the Sing Loud Play Strong 2nd Festival of Aboriginal Rock Music.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Education Centre in Cairns is a vocational school of Arts aimed at the development and realisation of Aboriginal artistic talent.
Dumbartung Aboriginal Corporation meaning 'we of the people' is a West Australian Aboriginal organization which aims to promote dance, drama, writing, painting, sculpture, craftwork, music and any other Aboriginal art...
Should art centres cater more for the few 'Top Quality' artists that each has or should they support and encourage artistic activities by all who are interested?
Painting movement at Papunya 1971-75 one of the few positive offshoots of the Government's Assimilation Policy. Senior men began to paint on boards and made murals for the school, initially showing sacred secret material, later self-censored. Paintings use complex patterning and dotting to describe formation of land by Ancestors, natural features and travel.
Two alternative opinions on Australia's most obvious cultural exchange - Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal- was the original conception of Balance 1990 Views, Visions, Influences - a collaborative exhibition originally titled Balance 1988: Two views One Vision. Beginning by artists sitting and talking it became obvious that there were more than just two perspectives.
"How many people still think that up north or in the centre is the only place for real Aboriginal art. You know when you work with it, selling it, buying it, you hear it all the time."