It's Australia an artistic country?

How can you measure when a country is an artistic country or their people are artistic people? Australia sure is. And its people sure are an artistic kind of people. The Australian indigenous men have a lot to say about this. To take an obvious example, the emergence of dot paintings by Indigenous men from the western deserts of Central Australia in the early 1970s has been called the greatest art movement of the twentieth century. What about nowadays? Australia has indeed an artistic legacy, how is taken arts and music in Australia today. Let’s find out.

Australian Rock Carving Art

Australian Indigenous art is the oldest ongoing tradition of art in the world. Initial forms of artistic Aboriginal expression were rock carvings, body painting and ground designs, which date back more than 30.000 years. The quality and variety of Australian Indigenous art shows distinction between different tribes. There is richness and diversity of Indigenous culture in Australian aboriginal works of art.

Every piece of art work of Indigenous culture was collected by anthropologists. Then they take it to museums or universities, not art galleries. But that all changed. In the early 1960s, 240 kilometers northwest of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, there was established a place called Papunya. The settlement brought together people from several western desert language groups like the Pintupi, Warlpiri, Arrente, Luritja and the Anmatyerr, who were unaccustomed to living in close proximity each other. Then in 1972, some men from this settlement founded “Papunya Tula Artists”. A community of Indigenous artists that collected they art together. They were the inspiration and model for many other Indigenous artists’ collectives. By 2009 there was 42 desert Indigenous art communities represented by Desart. The movement was seen as a way to keep the Indigenous culture alive.

Papunya Tula Art

But this kind of art is not the only way that Indigenous people expressed themselves. In fact, Ceremonial performances are seen as the core of cultural life. For example, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders these ceremonies bring together all aspects of their culture like song, dance, body decoration, sculpture and painting. These ceremonies along with its music were and are still today an important part of Aboriginal life. There are songs for every occasion and some of them are expressed in special ceremonies.

Aboriginal Music Ceremony

Indigenous people gathered together at large ceremonies and exchanged songs and dances. They took advantage of those moments to exchange goods. These gathering often occurred at a time and place when there was plenty of food. Ceremonies are the birthplace of Indigenous songs, music, dance and visual arts. These expressions of arts and music were extremely important to Aboriginal people. Because through these expressions they depicted dreaming stories and they pass their history to next generations.

The Indigenous people saw songs (like designs and paintings) as parts of a larger story. Songs make up a song series or a “songline” which is a map of the country based on the travels of the dreaming ancestors. When Aboriginal people, saw a painting or a design it would call to their mind a song. Many senior painters sing as they paint the story of the song. Current popular Indigenous musicians tend not to write love songs but they are more likely to write about subjects important to their communities, like land and community issues as well as protest songs, but mainly, to preserve the culture.

Didgeridoos

The Didgeridoo is the ultimate symbol of Australia aboriginal music. It is a wind instrument developed by Aboriginal people of the Northern territory 1.500 years ago. Nowadays, it has become the first point of contact with aboriginal culture for an international audience. Traditionally and originally, the didgeridoo was primarily played as an accompaniment to ceremonial dancing and singing. However, it was also common for didgeridoos to be played for solo or recreational purposes outside of ceremonial gatherings. The didgeridoo is still an integral part of ceremonial life, as it accompanies singers and dancers in cultural ceremonies. Today, the majority of didgeridoo playing is for recreational purposes in both Indigenous Australian communities and elsewhere around the world.

Arts and music are still an important issue in Australia nowadays. Australia is home to a vibrant community of artist like painters, photographers, glassblower, sculptors and digital and multimedia artists that have been working in a wide variety of genres and styles. Australia has many art galleries, museums and libraries holding more than 60 million items and an estimated 20.000 working artists. There are also a lot of music and multi-arts festivals.

Didgeridoo Player

Just 50 years ago, there was only one major arts festival in Australia. Today all Australian capital cities have multi-arts festivals that showcase the best of local and international artists and performers. There are also hundreds of smaller community-based festivals and national and regional festivals that focus on specific art forms.

Sydney Festival is held in Sydney for three weeks in January. It offers a rich and diverse program of events spanning all art forms, including dancing, theatre, music, visual arts and film. There are around 80 events involving more than 500 Australian and international artists. And this is just one of many. There are other major festivals like the National Multicultural Festival, Perth International Arts Festival, Adelaide Festival of Arts, “Ten Days on the Island” Festival, Brisbane Festival, Darwin Festival and the Melbourne International Arts Festival.

There are also festivals with specific themes such as jazz, folk, rock and country music.

Jazz festivals include city-based events like the Melbourne International Jazz Festival, the Valley Jazz Festival in Brisbane and smaller events held in towns and rural communities.

Sydney Festival

There are many annual rock music festivals, including Home bake, which started in Byron Bay in northern New South Wales in 1996; the Falls Festival, which started in 1993 in the Victorian coastal town of Lorne; the Big Day Out, which started in Sydney in 1992 and over the years has been extended to Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Auckland in New Zealand and the Gold Coast in Queensland; and the Meredith Music Festival, which started in 1991 in Meredith, a small town west of Melbourne.

Major folk festivals include the National Folk Festival, held in Canberra during the Easter period, where international and Australian artists perform at more than 100 concerts, workshops and poetry and storytelling sessions, and the Woodford Folk Festival, located in Maleny, Queensland and usually held in December.

Australia’s foremost annual country music event is the Tamworth Country Music Festival, held in Tamworth in New South Wales in January. The festival has been running since 1973. More than 50 000 people visited Tamworth for the event in 2007, which featured over 700 artists performing in 2300 events at about 100 different locations.

Australia has also produced a large variety of popular music from the internationally renowned work of the Bee Gees, AC/DC, INXS, Nick Cave, Cody Simpson or Kylie Minogue to the popular local content of John Farnham or Paul Kelly.

It is evident that Indigenous arts and music were extremely important at ancient times but they are still important today and Australia has done a good work taking care of it. It has evolved through time but not died in the process. It even gave birth to an international symbol of aboriginal culture, the Didgeridoo. Nowadays, Austraia is evidently a country with artistic consciousness. There are multi-arts festivals all year long in different parts of the country. It is the birthplace of many artists that has international recognition. It is clear enough, that Australia is indeed an Artistic country.

References

-Australian Government (2011, September). Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. [Documento WWW] URL http://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/australia/

-Australian Government (2011, September). Australia Council of Arts. [Documento WWW] URL http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/

-The Australian Arts Community (2011, September). Aboriginal arts through time. [Documento WWW] URL http://arts.org.au/index.php

-IDIDJ (2011, September). Australian Didjeridu Cultural Hub. [Documento WWW] URL http://www.ididj.com.au/