"We need more First Nations productions managers, producers, designers, composers, technicians, managers, administrators across all aspects of art making."
For thousands of generations, as First Nations peoples from Australia we have been self-determining our own cultural futures. Despite an imposed foreign government, that has neither negotiated a treaty nor recognised Indigenous sovereignty and has actively engaged in policies of cultural genocide and assimilation, the ability for our songlines to continue the highly sophisticated system of cultural transmission, artistic expression, knowledge, governance, organising, strategy and law continues to this day. First Nations artistic expression is our ‘cultural by-product’, governed by our ways of being and knowing. You can’t extract it and integrate it into your systems without our governance, ownership, leadership, and control. The new National Cultural Policy makes the need for self determination clear. For those of us in the self-determined sector, we have a legacy to continue, building on the progress of those who came before us, in the words of Wesley Enoch -
“The obvious need for Indigenous people to control the means of representation is part of the reconstructive process from a culture of resistance to a culture of repair. In that respect, there’s still a long way to go.”
Wesley Enoch, 1994.
Image; Joel Bray GARABARI - Arts House, Chunky Move 2022