Australia as I've Never Seen it

I guess I could be described as bookish. And a city girl - I've lived my whole 24 years in Melbourne, minus those six weeks after uni I spent in Europe. So, I guess it's no surprise that the sum total of my experience of Australian Aboriginal culture is academic.

I know that walking through the NGV's Aboriginal art collection doesn't qualify me as an expert, but it helped me to better understand aspects of Aboriginal culture. In the landscape paintings I saw a complex relationship with the land: mapping humans' place in it and the spirits' place. In the forest of funerary hollow logs I saw an inkling of a cultural practice that I didn't know existed. And I marvelled at the rarrk (cross-hatching) designs peculiar to a region of Arnhem Land that looked like the elaborate pattern the sinews of muscle make. And in the contemporary section, I saw our colonial past through Aboriginal eyes.

I also saw a whole lot of meaning that wasn't available to me, either deliberately - as under Aboriginal law the meaning is restricted and not for public consumption - or unintentionally - through lack of opportunities for interaction with Aboriginal people and culture. Nevertheless, the collection is the closest I've come to a dialogue with Australian Aboriginality. And it's an experience I'll relish.

By guest: LJ