We come to the final gallery and the question hanging in the air and on the walls is both obvious and profound: Where does Australia's Indigenous Art go from here? Clearly, the world around it is teeming with Western Artistic sensibilities. How will these integrate themselves into the artistic mindset of the next generation, even as they have already found fertile ground about the works displayed here. The effects can already be seen almost from the very beginning of the exhibition when ceremonial Larrakitj poles went from bearing the bones of the dead to adorning the spaces of the living as a decorative object, a reference to the past.
While the exhibition did not move these atheist's heart from a life of empiricism, I was deep touched by the degree of the sacred, the transformation of the communal experience into works that held deep meaning, preserving not just the moment, but it's transcendent power to affirm community. Western religions are so much about dominance that they even infect long held pacifist counterparts like Hinduism and Buddhism--would that the spiritual harmony found at the center of indigenous belief systems could one day return the favor.
So rather than just bemoan what could be lost, I am also encouraged to imagine what could be gained in the opposite direction. The final images. Enjoy!
