As in many other advanced countries, the role of indigenous culture in mainstream cultural policy has increased significantly in recent years. Australia, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand typify those countries with a colonial history, where a diverse indigenous culture has in recent years been re-discovered and its value revised. In Australia, the elements of traditional indigenous culture include music, dance, art and craft, Dreamtime stories and life survival stories (Queensland Cultural Tourism Framework 1996).
In addition, new forms of artistic and cultural expression of indigenous culture have emerged. While this trend has been closely associated with issues of indigenous identity, self-determination and economic independence, the recent renaissance of indigenous culture has also been important in revising notions of national identity and national culture. This revival has spawned a raft of inquiries into how best to manage and support the indigenous cultural industry (including the ATSIC Cultural Policy Framework 1995; Draft National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Industry Strategy 1994; ATSIC and the Office of Tourism National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Tourism Industry Strategy 1997).
Indigenous culture has become an iconic flagship in the promotion of Australia’s cultural specificity and difference. Indigenous cultural themes are used extensively in tourism promotion, for example, and indigenous art has been exhibited and artists celebrated internationally. The ATSI arts industry is estimated to be worth over $200 million annually and growing by 10% per annum. For example, in 1998-99, sales of ATSI arts and crafts in the Northern Territory alone accounted for $48.7 million and in 1997 Australian households spent $70.8 million on ATSI arts and crafts. Half of expenditure on the arts by international tourists is spent on ATSI arts and crafts ($77.7m out of $147.5m) (Altman and Taylor 1990; ATSIC 1994; ATSIC 1995; ATSIC & Office of Tourism 1997; ABS 2004).
Indigenous culture has also been important in creating employment opportunities for indigenous people with dance, choreography and visual arts occupations having the highest ATSI employment among cultural occupations. In all, there are 5,000-6,000 practising ATSI artists and craftspeople.
The emergence of an ATSI arts and craft genre was driven, initially, by government supported programs and projects. Important milestones include Geoffrey Bardon’s introduction of acrylic paints to the community of Papunya in the 1970s (Bardon 1979; Helmrich 2003; Bardon and Bardon 2004); the Utopia movement with the introduction of screen printing and, later, works on canvas in the 1980s; and the emergence in the mid-1990s of the Lockhart River Art Gang with its vibrant mix of traditional and contemporary genres (Neales 2002; BAM 2003; QAG 2003). Numerous Western desert communities now also have thriving arts centres producing highly distinctive paintings, prints and crafts as shown in the skin to skin exhibition as part of NAIDOC 2007 (Tuggeranong Arts Centre 2007). As always, there was a mixture of motives with welfare, employment and training, community building and improved health outcomes to the fore rather than simply promoting culture for its own sake. Once established, the market tended to be driven by metropolitan galleries and collectors and the international art market as well as international visitors (Mundine 2005).
Indigenous art offers diverse artforms and cultural activities including: visual arts (works on canvas, printmaking, bark, ceramics); crafts (revived traditional crafts and new ones — wood objects and carving, basket weaving, beads and seeds, sculpture, jewellery, clothing, fabric screen printing, weaving and knitting); indigenous cultural performances; cultural centres and keeping places; indigenous cultural heritage displays and cultural tours; and indigenous cultural festivals. The latter include the Laura, Aboriginal Dance and Torres Strait Festival in Townsville; the Croc (anti-drug) Festival on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait; the Stompem Ground in Broome, Western Australia; the Garma Festival in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory; Survival; and the Alice Springs Beanie Festival in the Northern Territory.
Indigenous cultural production, distribution and consumption have a number of distinctive features, including:
debates over traditional styles and techniques versus new ones (e.g. the use of acrylic paints, non-traditional colours, contemporary images and genres, new and multi-media);
the legitimacy of ‘urban’ indigenous artists addressing contemporary themes, versus ‘bush’ artists with their focus on traditional indigenous culture;
distinctive website commerce — leading the arts community in selling via the internet;
belated recognition by major auction houses that have massively inflated the price of indigenous artworks;
the popularity of commissioned work;
issues of intellectual property rights over cultural products; and
partial integration with indigenous cultural tourism and cultural heritage activities.
At the same time that indigenous culture has expanded as a sector, a number of pressing issues have emerged specific to this form of culture. Five key issues for ATSI cultural development were identified at an ATSIS[2] Vision Day (Australia Council Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Fund 2000):
The need to protect indigenous cultural and intellectual property (Johnson 1996, 1999).[3] This includes the unauthorised use of Aboriginal motifs and designs in clothing or interior décor.[4] A number of attempts have been made to produce a ‘Label of Authenticity’ and copyright arrangements for royalty payments and re-use of work. A particular issue is that or ‘authorship’. Unlike Western artistic traditions, much indigenous work is produced collectively often under the guidance or instruction of the key artist leading to claims that works have been sold and awards given inappropriately to single artists rather than a group.[5]
The need to increase visibility of indigenous arts both in Australia and internationally. This concerns how best to market and promote indigenous culture — and by whom.[6]
The need to increase economic and cultural sustainability — most money from indigenous cultural consumption goes to middlemen, not to indigenous producers. Where individuals are paid, an individual is expected to distribute the money through their family members, often leaving little for the individual producer. European gatekeepers are also significant in deciding who and what should be supported and promoted (Rothwell 2006; Ryan 2006).
The need for Indigenous people to manage and determine their own arts practices — Indigenous cultural centres and companies have had mixed fortunes and still often reliant on go-betweens. Examples of best practice include the Fire-works Gallery in Brisbane and its Camp Fire group of artists that supports grass roots artistic production; the Art Gang Exhibition from the Lockhart River Art and Cultural Centre in Cape York put this locality on the map as a dynamic emerging new arts centre; and the fibre art practice of the women of Western Arnhem Land (BAM 2003; QAG 2003; Hamby 2005).
The need to increase indigenous participation in non-indigenous festivals and events — arguments concern the danger of tokenism and ghettoisation; the challenge of reaching wider mainstream Australian audiences; and increasing public awareness and acceptance of indigenous culture and issues. Theatrical performances such as Deborah Mailman’s play ‘The Seven Stages of Grieving’ (co-written by Enoch Wesley) have been important in getting such issues raised on a wider public issue agenda (McCallum 2002: 14).
Indigenous cultural success stories include the internationally acclaimed contemporary indigenous dance company, Bangarra Dance Theatre, the leading; Tjapukai Cultural Centre in Cairns which combines cultural performance with cultural heritage and indigenous cultural and language training; the popular music group Yothu Yindi; television star and role model Ernie Dingo; and internationally successful visual artists.[7]
What are the consequences of the success of contemporary Indigenous artists for reconceptualising the arts and culture policy domain? Indigenous culture has challenged many of the scenarios of arts and cultural policy. Although initially subsumed within a suite of ‘welfare’ and redistribution policies, the sector has become entwined with issues of self-determination, political activism, rejection of mainstream governance, pan-indigeneity (linking Aboriginal culture with other indigenous groups), professionalisation and commercial potential.
Increasing concern about exploitation in the indigenous arts and crafts sector had been the subject of journalistic investigation by The Australian newspaper and had also been detailed in a report to the Australia Council (Janke and Quiggin 2006). Issues included payment of royalties, copyright, lack of appropriate remuneration to artists, and unethical practices (‘sweatshops’, paying in alcohol, non-indigenous reproductions, forgeries, fakes, unscrupulous ‘middle-men’) (see, for example, Rothwell 2006; Janke and Quiggin 2006; Australia Council 2007 Attachment 2). These revelations eventually led to the establishment of the Senate inquiry into Australia’s Indigenous visual arts and craft sector, chaired by West Australian Liberal Senator Alan Eggleston, to investigate and identify ‘strategies and mechanisms to strengthen the sector’ and ‘build a more sustainable Indigenous arts industry’ (Kemp 2006). In particular, the committee was charged with investigating ‘unscrupulous and unethical conduct that occurs in the sector’ (Kemp 2006; Senate Standing Committee on the Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts 2006; Arts Hub 2006). The report of the inquiry — Indigenous Art — Securing the Future; Australia’s Indigenous visual arts and craft sector — published in June 2007, recommended the establishment of an indigenous art industry code of conduct. The inquiry also recommended the indigenous arts industry be given two years to self-regulate or face having a code of conduct prescribed under the Trade Practices Act (Dow, 2007; Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, 2007).
Increasingly, too, indigenous culture — and international awareness of its importance — has driven national cultural agendas as expressed in national performances (such as the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony, cultural tourism programs, international expositions and exhibitions). Also, indigenous themes have infused all forms of cultural production, whether by indigenous or non-indigenous artists. For a sub-sector that was perceived to reply on patronage models of support, indigenous culture has confounded assumptions underpinning all aspects of Australian cultural policy. However, these recommendations are directed towards the output end of indigenous art rather than the fragile sustainability of the art centres and the cultural context of indigenous art production — especially in remote communities (Rothwell 2007: 16).