Cultural exploitation and the white-washing of traditional practices and tools…

I saw the following image in the entrance  of a major clothing store a couple of weeks ago.

Pale, thin expressionless mannequins dressed in clothing that is supposed to be Native American, surrounded by Dreamcatchers and ‘teepees’…

The scene caught my eye because it captured so well the normalising of the exploitation of Indigenous cultures, so rich in art, craft, mythology and history but seen only for the commercial profits that can be generated by selling as a gimmick something that has no connection to the Culture what-so-ever…

Tall, thin white-women dressed as how Native Americans are interpreted through European eyes is guaranteed a “no sale’ for this blogger!

Makinti Napanangka wins top Indigenous art prize

Winner … Makinti Napanangka (AAP: Paul Exline)

An artist from the Kintore community west of Alice Springs has won the country’s richest Indigenous art prize.

The winners of this year’s National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award were announced at the Museum and Art Gallery in Darwin last night.

Thousands of people converged on the gallery to celebrate the award’s 25th anniversary.

Makinti Napanangka from Kintore won the top $40,000 prize for her painting on linen.

The $4,000 general painting award went to Doreen Reid Nakamarra from Western Australia for her painting about a rockhole.

Last year’s top award winner Dennis Nona from the Torres Strait Islands won the Works on Paper prize.

More than 300 art works were entered in this year’s award and around 100 pieces which made the final cut are on display at the Museum and Art Gallery in Darwin until October.

Hetti Perkins from the Art Gallery of New South Wales helped judge this year’s collection.

Ms Perkins says the winning painting has a lot in common with the artist.

“It’s very dynamic and charismatic and I have to say that she, from what I know about her, Makinti is very like that,” she said.

“She’s quite elderly now but I think her enthusiasm for art making remains undiluted.”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/16/2337310.htm

My Niece Louise reminds me…

…that youth is passion and that anything is possible……

Louise reminds me of what a wonderful Mother my sister is and what a great man she chose in her husband Wayne… and how the arrival of Louise and her twin brother Ben moved our family to a whole new place of insight and love that is such a long way from the post-war life of our parents era…

…and what a wonderful ‘Nan’ and ‘Grandad’ our parents have become…

Mandalas as tools for Staff Training and Development…

The Mandala- the Circular form, which I have shared in other sections of my blog – is a great tool for inspiring right brain thinking and reflection during Staff training sessions.

As people engage with the rhythmic movement of adding colour and meaning to the individual black and white templates, the process is akin to a mind-massage that gives access to parts of the brain we have often lost touch with in this , predominantly analytical western system that has so much influence on how we Think and Create……or not.

Sadly many people are living their life with the belief of “I am not Creative”, in spite of the fact that we all started out as creative, imaginative, ‘magical’ children.
You can read a little story about what happens to the ‘magical child in exile’ by clicking here..

Feedback after the creativity based training often contains statements like “I was amazed at how much more information I absorbed even though i was not always looking up” and “thankyou for giving us permission to go in to our own creative space and contribute without having to sit still all day in the one position”...”wow…I am going to share these tools with my daughter and grandchildren”…

The indoctrination to sitting completely still, STOP fidgetings, eyes to the front “look at me when I’m talking to you!!!’…”stop day dreaming”…. model of learning and education has resulted in many people disconnecting from movement, flow, kinesthetic engagement and imagination that defines the Creative State…

Is it any wonder so many people feel let down by mainstream education and leave it believing absolutely that “I am not Creative”….Very sad! …..and not without significant mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health implications….

The following are samples of some of the work that was created during a series of Cultural Inclusivity Action Plan workshops.
The four themes that were central to the day were “Team” “Community” “Our Place” and “Balance”….you can see the theme is written on the Mandala and the individual creative input is an unique and diverse as the participants and the Community they serve….

We honour the traditional owners of this great land when we implement processes that ‘Aborginalise’ the western mindset by engaging with traditional cultural practices of art, creativity, story sharing, talking circles and….FUN! ….a long way from chairs lined up with backs to one another, sitting motionless for hours through slide shows, pie graphs and talking, talking, talking…;)

CREATIVITY WORKSHOPS ARE VERY DIFFERENT THAN THE ‘BORED ROOM” APPROACH..

OUR PLACE

TEAM

BALANCE IN THE WORKPLACE

Each Mandala has a developmental theme and is used as individual process, in the small group talking /action plan group and as a larger group we have poster size replicas which, by the end of the day…become the centre of action-plan installation art.

You can see how wonderful it is to create the ART of Vision / Action over the tired old butchers paper sheets that tend to be rolled away and disappeared forever once the workshop is over….

I LOVE books…so this was such a great sight!

I was born into a book loving family…which is very fortunate as my parents were born into the low-to-no-opportunities of a northern English factory town where education often stopped very early in life and menial work began.
Neither of my parents had the opportunity for higher education but that did not stop them from reading, learning, reading, learning…and passing on the passion for books to us..crossword puzzles, scrabble, big books, small books……libraries are a big part of our families external life!..:)

On the weekend Sal and I went to the markets at the Port Adelaide docks and as we strolled around the second level of these big old converted wharf sheds…this is what we saw.

A higgldy-piggldy mass of books, books, books…with such chaotic order, that I am sure some of those books on the bootom are never viewed, because their sole purpose is to hold up the pile!