Proposed Festival of Indigenous Art and Culture
Proposal
That one of Australia's capital cities should stage an Indigenous Arts
Festival of world standing every two or four years, to honor and celebrate
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, and indigenous cultures from
around the world, as a major new visitor attraction.
Rationale
In a country in which indigenous culture has such a distinguished place, it is
ironic that is took the Olympic Games coming to town in 2000 for Australia
to stage the nation’s first -- and only – “blockbuster” celebration of
indigenous art and culture, the Festival of the Dreaming in 1997. Australia
should not have needed the prompting.
But having done it once, this then should have been a legacy from the
Games. Australia should have gone on to create the world's greatest
Indigenous Arts Festival as a must-see, two or four yearly, item on the world
cultural calendar, honoring indigenous culture and drawing tourists from
around the world.
We can still do so.
What country has more need of this, as Australia continues to grapple with
the deep challenges of bringing indigenous people fully into Australian
society? And what country is better placed to do it, given our two big
competitive advantages – we are home to possibly the world's longest
enduring culture, and we are second to none in organizing major events.
At the time of the Olympics, we had the template, the organizational
structure, the people, the plan, and most importantly the support and
enthusiastic engagement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
The Festival of the Dreaming was run out of SOCOG, nurtured by people
distinguished in arts management like Leo Schofield and Craig Hassell, and
directed by one of Australia's best-known and most successful indigenous
figures, Rhoda Roberts. It would not have taken a huge effort to roll this
forward every four years.
The good news is that Australia could still grasp this legacy. We would be
updating rather than starting from scratch.
It might be said that Australia already includes indigenous art in a range of
festivals, museums, galleries and so on around the country. But this would
be a lazy response. It entirely misses the point.
What was special about the Festival of the Dreaming is the same thing which
is special about the Olympic Games, and why it has such remarkable pulling
power. The magic of the Olympics is precisely that it compresses into one
place and one time a tremendous variety of sports, all performed to a
standard of excellence, so that the whole becomes bigger than the sum of its
parts. Likewise, the Festival of the Dreaming was a unique draw card
because it compressed into one time and one place an unprecedented critical
mass of visual and performing arts.
In four weeks, the public could enjoy indigenous art ranging from the highly
popular Mimi stiltwalkers which drew mums, dads and kids to Centennial
Park, through to the leading-edge dance of Bangarra at the Opera House.
This single cultural showcase gave voice to more than 700 indigenous artists
from Australia and around the world. Every state and territory of Australia
was represented. There were works from urban, remote and rural areas.
There were also indigenous contributions from New Zealand, Canada,
Greenland, the United States, Korea and the countries of Oceania.
The day-to-day exhibiting and honoring of indigenous art around Australia
is obviously vital. But so too is the big impact event. It is not an “either-or”
situation.
One reason we should do this is a moral imperative. For all the obvious
historical reasons, the Australian community as a whole has a special
obligation towards the first inhabitants of this continent. The proposal is
fully in line with the philosophy of reconciliation.
Moreover, there may be widely differing views and political positions on
chronic problems of aboriginal disadvantage in Australia but respect for
indigenous art transcends these debates. Like sport, the arts provide a field
in which indigenous and non-indigenous Australians easily come together.
It is part of a potential cement for our society.
Would an Indigenous Arts Festival fix the deep-seated problems of
disadvantage in aboriginal communities? Obviously not. But would it help,
in a small way, over time, to create a better climate for fixing them? Very
probably.
And it would, not unimportantly, polish Australia's international reputation
and counter the negative caricatures that are sometimes still around.
But there is another reason as well; a hard-nosed business reason.
Instead of focusing so much attention on bidding for major international
events which already exist, and where the decisions are (to put it politely)
sometimes fickle, we should shift the balance towards creating events
ourselves. This should be an important part of a wider agenda of creating
much-needed new tourism product in Australia.
We should get the world knocking a bit more at our door in major events,
rather than the other way around.
Again, of course, it is not either-or. We should fight to host events like the
Football World Cup. But we have more control of our own fate in the
competitive worldwide major events industry if we invent our own. We
reportedly spent $50 million and wound up with one vote from FIFA. It
would take a great deal less than that to seed the funding for a world best
Indigenous Arts Festival and we would be taking out destiny into our own -extremely cable -- hands.
My proposition is not an annual festival. I think that this risks the event
becoming merely routine. There is also the question of cost. I propose a
four yearly or two yearly event. The “Biennale” is an established concept in
the arts world, and being the world's Indigenous Arts Biennale would
instantly have a lot of cachet. (It could perhaps alternate with the very
successful Sydney Biennale, which currently happens in the even numbered
years. This is what happens in Venice, where the arts Biennale alternates
with the architecture one. But this is a suggestion rather than an essential
feature of the proposal.)
An indigenous arts festival could circulate between capital cities, but I favor
one location so that the event becomes identified internationally with one
place -- a powerful marketing device. We want the Cannes Film Festival of
world indigenous art and culture. Sydney would make a good deal of sense,
because of the Olympic legacy and Sydney's major drawing power for
tourists.
Recommendation
I recognize the need to look before we leap.
But, at the very least, surely this proposal deserves close, serious and
positive consideration by government with the full engagement of
indigenous people and the major event and tourism promotion authorities in
Australia.
Sandy Hollway