We are exceedingly privileged to live on the unceded lands of the Kulin Nation, a place dotted with marshlands and waterfalls for countless millennia before the Hoddle Grid was a thing. Perched just north of the CBD, on the spine of Swanston Street as it leads into Carlton, sits the University of Melbourne’s incredible Potter Museum of Art.
Designed by revered architect Nona Katsilidis and wearing Christine O’Loughlin’s explosive mural ‘Cultural Rubble’ on its façade, it opened in 1998 but has been closed for major renovations since 2018, leaving a big gap in Melbourne’s artistic footprint. No longer, with a revitalisation led by Wood Marsh Architects, the Potter Museum of Art reopened to the public with a spectacular new exhibition recognising the great wealth of culture in this place: 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art.
Celebrating the remarkable diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander creativity, the exhibition showcases more than 400 artworks from the likes of Destiny Deacon, Yhonnie Scarce, Albert Namatjira and Emily Kam Kngwarray, including rare cultural works. Curated by Professor Marcia Langton AO, senior curator Judith Ryan and associate curator Shanysa McConville in consultation with Elders, 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art directly addresses the scars of colonial invasion.
Six brand new commissions include Kooma artist Brett Leavy’s photo-realistic animation Virtual Narrm 1834. As part of his ongoing immersive Virtual Songlines project, the video installation allows you to travel back in time, revisiting those long-lost waterways of the Wurundjeri people.
The Birrarung (or Yarra River) was once teeming with eels that Wurundjeri people would fish with the aid of gnarraban, intricately woven traps. Dhauwurd Wurrung Gunditjmara artist Sandra Aitken has crafted an oversized version that honours her aunt, Connie Hart, who helped revive the process locally after colonial attempts to stamp it out.
Trawlwoolway artist Vicki West also works in woven artworks, showing kalikina (bull kelp) water carriers plus river reed and white iris baskets, in a proud continuation of the ancient traditions of Lutruwita (Tasmania) First Nations peoples.
Fellow Trawlwoolway installation artist and curator Julie Gough reframes the colonial practice of taking busts of First Nations people and disseminating their likeness to institutions worldwide by presenting those of Nununi leaders Wurati and Trukanini in their museum crates, accompanied by a new video work dissecting the practice.
Waradgerie artist Lorraine Connelly-Northey has crafted an impressive career out of repurposing industrial waste metal into giant narrbong, or bush bags, that would once have been fashioned from tree bark string. Three of her stunning creations are on show here.
Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands Elders Betty Muffler and Maringka Burton peel back the veil of silence purposefully drawn in the aftermath of the British government conducting toxic atomic bomb tests at Maralinga and Emu Field during the 1950s. Rather than create a work of despair, large-scale painting Ngangkari Ngura (Healing Country) highlights their care for the land as Aṉangu ngangkari (traditional healers).
“The ironic title of this exhibition refers to the belated and reluctant acceptance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art into the fine art canon by Australian curators, collectors, art critics and historians in the last quarter of the 20th century,” says Langton. “Indigenous art is increasingly recognised in galleries and collections around the world as the greatest single revolution in Australian art.”
Curators Judith Ryan and Shanysa McConville added: “This exhibition bears testament to 65,000 years of knowledge. It encompasses an extraordinary range of artists and works of art that serve as a conceptual map, illustrating our contested shared history and introducing us to some of the Indigenous architects of change.”
For more information on this free exhibition, head to the website.
