Always Was, Always Will Be: In celebration of NAIDOC Week 2020

In celebration of the theme of NAIDOC Week 2020,  a wide selection of vibrant Aboriginal art that celebrates that Australia's land Always Was and Always Will Be Aboriginal.  Art has been a key factor in numerous Indigenous land rights claims with works often created for the purpose providing graphic and powerful demonstration of Aboriginal people’s long and close history with their lands and their entitlement to them. For Aboriginal people there is little distinction between themselves and their lands; they don’t live on their lands so much as they are the land. Here, the works of   33 artists from Victoria, the Central, Western and Eastern Deserts, the Kimberley, the Pilbara, Arnhem Land, the Tiwi Islands and Queensland demonstrates particular aspects of connection to lands.  Most of the exhibiting artists still live on their traditional lands. Some, such as Bugai Whyoulter, Doris Bush, Julie Yajtitja, Nellie Coulthard, Teresa Pumani and Yurpiya Lionel grew up living a very traditional ‘bush’ lifestyle - rarely in contact with Europeans and strongly connected to the seasons, traditional foods, medicines and ceremonial practices. Others such as Gordon Barney, Peggy Madjirroong Griffiths, Patrick Smith Tjapaltjarri, Lizzie Moss Pula and Jeannie Mills Pwerle in their youth lived a semi traditional lifestyle as well as working as station workers and stock men and women on and around their traditional lands.  Alison Munti Riley, Barbara Weir, Ben Galmirri Ward, Norm Stewart have been notable activists for their communities in acquiring landrights and fighting the destruction of their lands through agriculture, mining and other incursions.  Mornington Island’s Amanda Gabori, Papunya’s Watson Corby Tjungurrayi, Yuendumu’s Athena Nangala Granites and Debbie Napaljarri Brown learnt the art of painting from their famous artist mothers, grandmothers and grandfathers while Victorian artists Cynthia Hardie, Jack Anselmi and Laurel Robinson note that the practice of art has helped to reconnected them to both their culture and country.