Lockhart River Aboriginal Community
On my most recent trip to Australia I found myself one day standing in an art gallery, in Alice Springs, in front of a huge pink painting, unlike anything I had seen before on my quest from gallery to gallery, seeking inspiration and some kind of understanding for Aboriginal art. I was blown away by the boldness of the work and felt a draw to know more about this artist and her community. I asked around, found the information needed to dig deeper, but it wasn't enough. I had learned that the artist was part of a group called the Art Gang of Lockhart River, an Aboriginal community far away in an impossible-to-get-to area on Cape York. An impulsive and wonderful idea hit me. I was going to go there. It's one of those ideas we get when we travel and most often we end up not acting on it because it's too silly or the bus doesn’t go there. My rational brain kept picking at the idea but I had already had the liberating experience of finding, in little ways, that when we let go of control and of planning every step of our journey, magical things happen. This excursion was going to be solid proof. I contacted the art centre housing the gang, asking if I could come and do volunteer work, and then waited and waited. No reply. But I was determined. I was going to go and the universe was going to help me get there. I bought my airfare to Cairns, completely disregarding my left-brain expressing great disbelief in my willingness to travel 2000 km toward a destination I potentially could be denied access to. I did not have an invitation. Never at home in Denmark would I have considered this an option. But as you know or will find on your journey, rules from home do not apply when away. What you will also find as you venture out of your comfort zone is this: Desire, ask, believe and you shall receive. The next morning I received a phone call. The art centre in the community would be pleased to have me visit.
This is Lockhart River. A small indigenous village on Cape York, nestled in between the tropical rainforest of the Iron Range Mountains and the crocodile infested beautifully remote east coast. I had to fly in due to all roads and rivers being flooded, which gave me little idea of how inaccessible the community is, but a great view of how isolated these people live.
My first impression however was tainted with disappointment because my imagination had already decided what the community would look like. I had expected a village of old hut-like buildings, hidden in the rainforest under great big trees. The community I found was compiled of modern concrete houses in a typical city-like structure, with some asphalted roads and huge land cruisers driving around. A town completely juxtaposed to the environment in which it was built and for the people intended. I then made the assumption that there couldn't be much original culture left with such an influence of westernised living. I did however enjoy my air-conditioned, and spacious newly built flat.
That evening I reminded myself of why I had come, this being my official aim: to explore indigenous culture and its influence on contemporary aboriginal art. With a background in commercial art, which I had taken a no-time-limit break from, I had a thirst for finding artists who were in touch with and worked from a place of true and non-profit driven inspiration. Potential channels of something much greater than the egos I had come across in my work. I was going to keep an open mind as I had already learned that the Australian government has a misconceived understanding of how to develop these communities, with regards to traditional Aboriginal living. Whatever culture to be found it could easily be hidden behind the facade of concrete. At the art centre I was confronted with my first obstacle in my excavation process, and it was a cultural one. Most of the artists working were guys. The three superstars, all girls, had left the community when they started making good money from their art. Rosella Namok is one of them and at 26 years she is the highest grossing artist in all of Australia in her age group. It was partly her work that inspired me in the first place to go to Lockhart. My digging then proved difficult because there would be little interaction with the male artists - when you are foreign, female and white. It wasn't just at the art centre but in general in the community I felt out of my comfort zone, even just walking down the street. I recognised that my presence wouldn't be accepted immediately but I had given myself a full month to explore. Patience does it.
As I wasn't able to communicate too easily with the locals, I was fortunate to be around non-locals as well. To them I could ask all the sensitive questions without offending or acting ignorant. Sometimes I felt it a shame I didn't have the courage to just sit down and ask the locals straight questions and get straight answers. However, this I felt was not culturally acceptable. In our culture we love to air our opinion on politics and personal issues to anyone who cares to listen. In this community, I sensed that you just don't, unless you are accepted as family.
After three weeks at the art centre the guys finally started opening up to me. It was very gradual and it wasn't until I started painting among them, that they got comfortable talking about their art .. . or I got comfortable asking and making an effort to be one of them, and not an outsider merely interviewing. I figured it was the best way to observe them if I was working among them, and just hanging out in their space.
There was another obstacle. On top of the cultural reserved-ness there was the language barrier. They knew English but with a sweet twist that took some getting use to. By themselves, or when they paid no attention to me, they would go off like all guys do, loud, and in something I think they called the language of the people from 'the long white beach'. There were never any long elaborate conversations about their art. They were all very grounded and completely unpretentious. I watched them come in everyday, unless of course it was a perfect day for fishing or roaming around town, to paint one great image after another. No story intellectually planned out. They would paint what they know and love from the environment in which they live.
The animals they hunt, the stories they grew up with, their family and community, and the spirits of their ancestors. And sometimes they would come in, stare at the canvas, make a phone call to a cousin somewhere, paint something, stare at the canvas some more, and walk back out. Better day for fishing.
I learned something from the way they approached the objective of the day. When we do work that we feel compelled to do, with no other motive than to give an ideal life, with no attachment to timeline or to what other people think or like, doing the work becomes a flow of just that. Doing. I already knew this, but I doubt they have ever felt a need to give thought to these same words, and because of just that, because it's not in their culture to analyse thoughts to pieces, nor to question the act of doing, being creative is a natural way of living life. Expressing it, as they know it. Whether they are making a spear for turtle hunting, or painting that spear on canvas.
As for the culture I had expected to find, in the form of traditional ceremonies around the evening camp fire, with all members of the community equally participating in the learning and practicing of the old way, I was let down. Sad at first to see the western influence so dominating but then finding that culture is not static as my concept of it was. I believed that living less and less as they did before ‘white fellas’ came along, meant the culture was dying. Eventually to be completely lost and forgotten. However, through the interaction I did have with the locals I found their culture that of a people expressing themselves as to who they are in the now and adopting new ways to do so in every generation, as opposed to a generation holding on to the past and taking on customs that no longer apply to their everyday life – doing them for the sake of a ritual. Traditional culture is not necessarily obvious at first glance and most of it I would never have been introduced to anyway. Culture lives in the home in everyday interaction between people and it's celebrated during sacred ceremonies. It's expressed in little ways, like the school kids I met who, wearing Yankees baseball caps and rapping along to
50 Cent, would spontaneously break into traditional ceremonial dance, then giggle and stop when they found I was watching. Who, on a school fieldtrip, would fool around in front of my camera, and then stop with very serious looks on their faces, telling me to put my camera away because we had entered a sacred spot where the spirit people live. Then there were the old ladies, with whom I spend time gathering plant materials for their weaving. They would sit in the back of the land cruiser, which I was the chauffeur of, requesting the airconditioner on full blast, talking gossip and laughing, and complaining about their sore hips, like all old ladies. They would tell me where to go (but always forgetting which left is left) and suddenly, very casually, tell me to stop the car, with a short comment like: “It's men’s business down there, turn the car around” – which meant I had come too close to a sacred site.
In general I thought I was being very observant of the locals and their ways, only to find that I was being watched even more carefully. I felt my presence eventually embraced by the people who had come into contact with me. I felt comfortable in the community though never at home. I had learned lots but didn't walk away with a feeling of really knowing. The experience did however prompt me to question and redefine my concepts of culture. It's a rare occasion that backpackers get the opportunity to dig deep in the country they explore. I feel very grateful to have allowed myself this experience and privileged to have met the people I did.
– by Line Maria le Fevre
