Garma Festival

Speech by Mandawuy Yunupingu
22nd Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award,
Darwin, 12 August 2005

Chief Minister Clare Martin, Doug Campbell, Group Managing Director, Telstra Countrywide.
Award Judges Doug Hall, Destiny Deacon, and Mawalan Marika. Ladies and Gentlemen.

It is very good to be here - after a hectic but strong week in Arnhem Land, at Garma.

Given the vital role of art in Indigenous Australia for its strength and cohesion, and the sponsorship of the NATSIA Award, I think it is very appropriate to talk tonight about the necessity across Australia to install and maintain connections - social and cultural and economic connections - for and with Indigenous Australians.

For me, it is particularly good talking about connections, as we, the Yothu Yindi Foundation, have just this week finished putting on the 7th annual Garma Festival, out at Gulkula, in north-east Arnhem Land. Some of you were there, I know.

This year, Garma featured as the theme of its key educational forum the subject of "Indigenous Cultural livelihoods". The forum, coordinated by Charles Darwin University, had the key streams of visual art, performance art (incl. music) and tourism; all cultural and economic activities which can, if structured and developed properly, provide sustainable livelihoods for Yolngu and other Indigenous Australians -- and, at the same time, nurture and protect and promote the cultural traditions and practices.

The connection between art, and community, between art and a strong cultural base for a community is very strong for Indigenous Australia.

Art is a central element of the culture, so it is essential for Indigenous art to flourish, for its traditions to be maintained and for its creativity to be nurtured - for these cultural roots to stay planted firmly in the red dirt of Gulkula - the bauxite! - and all Indigenous soil around Australia.

The connections between performance, land, and visual art are strong, and necessary for community cohesion and development. You can't overestimate the value of visual arts in remote communities, and the effect of success in visual art on community life. Art is a cultural, social and economic foundation. Like our land, it stitches us together. It is ours. It must stay ours.

Garma is also helping develop, celebrate and express the changes taking place in contemporary east Arnhem land art practice, in regard to style and content - and we are displaying that to the public .

I should mention here too that the discussions on art in the key forum at Garma threw up and explored many key issues for Indigenous art and artists, and their ability to develop livelihoods , and debate on issues such as re-sale arrangements will be made all that more informed and proper by the forum discussions.

Garma also featured, as well as the now famous nightly Bunggul, or dance ceremony, a visit by our Macassan friends, another connection I want to mention. For 500 or so years, the Macassans have been coming here, over the sea, to trade. Modern laws no longer make that possible, and it is important to rekindle and maintain the long connection, expressed in many ways, between the Macassans and the Yolngu.

They performed at Garma, and again here and also developed at Garma a performance which will be featured in the Darwin Festival, This performance is yet another positive outcome of Garma, and will help restore that connection between the Macassans and the Yolngu.

Just as the connection between art and the community is vital and basic in Indigenous Australia, so is the need to connect non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australia. And that is another one of the basic aims of Garma and the Foundation, along with creating economic opportunities, and nurturing cultural traditions. We want to share knowledge and culture, and thereby create greater understanding between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

I mentioned economic opportunities. There is a lot of talk around regarding Indigenous Australians needing to get off "welfare and government hand outs" and become more independent economically. Without discussing the fact that what are often called "welfare and handouts" in this context are actually just the basic services and infrastructure facilities, and the access to them, nearly every other Australian get as and consider a right, but for some reason are considered a privilege for Indigenous Australia.

I want to point out that the talk is just that - talk! I am proud that the Foundation, through various projects and through Garma, is not just talking - it is creating those economic opportunities, through education, training, employment and enterprise development - it is facilitating livelihoods. Not just talking, as I mentioned in a song a while back!

So the support of such people as a Principal Partner, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board of the Australia Council for the Arts, in putting on Garma is vital and deeply appreciated. It means we can continue to develop and maintain - through art - economic opportunities, and positive social and cultural outcomes, and foster greater understanding among Australians.

Of course, there is now also strong connection between the NATSIA Awards, the Garma Festival and the Darwin Festival. Through the efforts of the NT Government, another of the Principal Partners of the Foundation in the Garma Festival, these three events are now joined in time, in sequence. August is now a great art month in the N.T.

And the Garma-NATSIA Awards-Darwin Festival connection is that much stronger this year through the Macassan involvement, and the fact that the Garma Bunggul, or dance ceremony, competition prize winners - and I thank Arts NT the sponsor very much indeed - are here tonight performing with the Macassans.

Indigenous art is practiced, and is strong in a wide array of forms and styles, some better known than others; and in a range of traditional and contemporary media. This diversity reflects the changing face, and body, of contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art practice. There is a rich diversity, from the stunning bark paintings, like my sister Gulumbu's, which won last year's award! - to the sculpture, digital media, and film making. The deeply traditional to the thoroughly modern.

Before finishing, I want to acknowledge the Telstra Foundation for supporting Garma this year, and next year. We used to have Telstra itself as a partner, and we hope to rekindle that relationship in the future, maybe even next year, which features "Education and Training" as its key forum theme.

I've talked a lot about connections, because it is all connected - our land, our art, our livelihood, our culture, our communities, our nation. And it about sharing knowledge and culture, protecting our culture, creating economic opportunities which don't destroy it.

The Telstra NATSIA Awards helps in all those aims - they inspire, they teach, they create greater understanding, they promote our culture. They have assisted in developing what the concept and practice of Garma is all about - it is a Yolngu word meaning "Two way learning process'- and that is what we need as a country.

Thank you.