1. Rock-art of the Western Desert and Pilbara: Pigment dates provide new perspectives on the role of art in the Australian arid zone Jo McDonald (Australian National University) and Peter Veth (Australian National University) Systematic analysis of engraved and painted art from the Western Desert and Pilbara has allowed us to develop a spatial model for discernable style provinces. Clear chains of stylistic connection can be demonstrated from the Pilbara coast to the desert interior with distinct and stylistically unique rock-art bodies. Graphic systems appear to link people over short, as well as vast, distances, and some of these style networks appear to have operated for very long periods of time. What are the social dynamics that could produce unique style provinces, as well as shared graphic vocabularies, over 1000 kilometres? Here we consider language boundaries within and between style provinces, and report on the first dates for pigment rock-art from the Australian arid zone and reflect on how these dates from the recent past help address questions of stylistic variability through space and time. 2. Painting and repainting in the west Kimberley Sue O?Connor, Anthony Barham (Australian National University) and Donny Woolagoodja (Mowanjum Community, Derby) We take a fresh look at the practice of repainting, or retouching, rockart, with particular reference to the Kimberley region of Western Australia. We discuss the practice of repainting in the context of the debate arising from the 1987 Ngarinyin Cultural Continuity Project, which involved the repainting of rock-shelters in the Gibb River region of the western Kimberley. The ?repainting debate? is reviewed here in the context of contemporary art production in west Kimberley Indigenous communities, such as Mowanjum. At Mowanjum the past two decades have witnessed an artistic explosion in the form of paintings on canvas and board that incorporate Wandjina and other images inspired by those traditionally depicted on panels in rock-shelters. Wandjina also represents the key motif around which community desires to return to Country are articulated, around which Country is curated and maintained, and through which the younger generations now engage with their traditional lands and reach out to wider international communities. We suggest that painting in the new media represents a continuation or transference of traditional practice. Stories about the travels, battles and engagements of Wandjina and other Dreaming events are now retold and experienced in the communities with reference to the paintings, an activity that is central to maintaining and reinvigorating connection between identity and place. The transposition of painting activity from sites within Country to the new ?out-of-Country? settlements represents a social counterbalance to the social dislocation that arose from separation from traditional places and forced geographic moves out-of-Country to government and mission settlements in the twentieth century. 3. Port Keats painting: Revolution and continuity Graeme K Ward (AIATSIS) and Mark Crocombe (Thamarrurr Regional Council) The role of the poet and collector of ?mythologies?, Roland Robinson, in prompting the production of commercial bark-painting at Port Keats (Wadeye), appears to have been accepted uncritically - though not usually acknowledged - by collectors and curators. Here we attempt to trace the history of painting in the Daly?Fitzmaurice region to contextualise Robinson?s contribution, and to evaluate it from both the perspective of available literature and of accounts of contemporary painters and Traditional Owners in the Port Keats area. It is possible that the intervention that Robinson might have considered revolutionary was more likely a continuation of previously well established cultural practice, the commercial development of which was both an Indigenous ?adjustment? to changing socio-cultural circumstances, and a quiet statement of maintenance of identity by strong individuals adapting and attempting to continue their cultural traditions. 4. Negotiating form in Kuninjku bark-paintings Luke Taylor (AIATSIS) Here I examine social processes involved in the manipulation of painted forms of bark-paintings among Kuninjku artists living near Maningrida in Arnhem Land. Young artists are taught to paint through apprenticeships that involve exchange of skills in producing form within extended family groups. Through apprenticeship processes we can also see how personal innovations are shared among family and become more regionally located. Lately there have been moves by senior artists to establish separate out-stations and to train their wives and daughters to paint. At a stylistic level the art now creates a greater sense of family autonomy and yet the subjects link the artists back in to much broader social networks. 5. Making art and making culture in far western New South Wales Lorraine Gibson This contribution is based on my ethnographic fieldwork. It concerns the intertwining aspects of the two concepts of art and culture and shows how Aboriginal people in Wilcannia in far western New South Wales draw on these concepts to assert and create a distinctive cultural identity for themselves. Focusing largely on the work of one particular artist, I demonstrate the ways in which culture (as this is considered) is affectively experienced and articulated as something that one ?comes into contact with? through the practice of art-making. I discuss the social and cultural role that art-making, and art talk play in considering, mediating and resolving issues to do with cultural subjectivity, authority and identity. I propose that in thinking about the content of the art and in making the art, past and present matters of interest, of difficulty and of pleasure are remembered, considered, resolved and mediated. Culture (as this is considered by Wilcannia Aboriginal people) is also made anew; it comes about through the practice of artmaking and in displaying and talking about the art work. Culture as an objectified, tangible entity is moreover writ large and made visible through art in ways that are valued by artists and other community members. The intersections between Aboriginal peoples, anthropologists, museum collections and published literature, and the network of relations between, are also shown to have interesting synergies that play themselves out in the production of art and culture. 6. Black on White: Or varying shades of grey? Indigenous Australian photo-media artists and the ?making of? Aboriginality Marianne Riphagen (Radboud University, The Netherlands) In 2005 the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Melbourne presented the Indigenous photo-media exhibition Black on White. Promising to explore Indigenous perspectives on non-Aboriginality, its catalogue set forth two questions: how do Aboriginal artists see the people and culture that surrounds them? Do they see non-Aboriginal Australians as other? However, art works produced for this exhibition rejected curatorial constructions of Black and White, instead presenting viewers with more complex and ambivalent notions of Aboriginality and non-Aboriginality. This paper revisits the Black on White exhibition as an intercultural event and argues that Indigenous art practitioners, because of their participation in a process to signify what it means to be Aboriginal, have developed new forms of Aboriginality. 7. Culture production Rembarrnga way: Innovation and tradition in Lena Yarinkura?s and Bob Burruwal?s metal sculptures Christiane Keller (University of Westerna Australia) Contemporary Indigenous artists are challenged to produce art for sale and at the same time to protect their cultural heritage. Here I investigate how Rembarrnga sculptors extend already established sculptural practices and the role innovation plays within these developments, and I analyse how Rembarrnga artists imprint their cultural and social values on sculptures made in an essentially Western medium, that of metal-casting. The metal sculptures made by Lena Yarinkura and her husband Bob Burruwal, two prolific Rembarrnga artists from north-central Arnhem Land, can be seen as an extension of their earlier sculptural work. In the development of metal sculptures, the artists shifted their artistic practice in two ways: they transformed sculptural forms from an earlier ceremonial context and from earlier functional fibre objects. Using Fred Myers?s concept of culture production, I investigate Rembarrnga ways of culture-making. 8. 'How did we do anything without it?': Indigenous art and craft micro-enterprise use and perception of new media technology.maps, colour photographs, b&w photographswest kimberley, rock art, kuninjku, photo media, lena yarinkura, bob burruwal, new media technology

Nicholas Caire was born on Guernsey in the Channel Islands in 1837. He arrived in Adelaide with his parents in about 1860. In 1867, following photographic journeys in Gippsland, he opened a studio in Adelaide. From 1870 to 1876 he lived and worked in Talbot in Central Victoria. In 1876 he purchased T. F. Chuck's studios in the Royal Arcade Melbourne. In 1885, following the introduction of dry plate photography, he began a series of landscape series, which were commercially successful. As a photographer, he travelled extensively through Victoria, photographing places few of his contemporaries had previously seen. He died in 1918. Reference: Jack Cato, 'Caire, Nicholas John (1837–1918)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/caire-nicholas-john-3139/text3683, published first in hardcopy 1969, accessed online 1 July 2016.An original, rare photograph from the series 'Views of Victoria: General Series' by the photographer, Nicholas Caire (1837-1918). The series of 60 photographs that comprise the series was issued c. 1876 and reinforced a neo-Romantic view of the Australian landscape to which a growing nationalist movement would respond. Nicholas Caire was active as a photographer in Australia from 1858 until his death in 1918. His vision of the Australian bush and pioneer life had a counterpart in the works of Henry Lawson and other nationalist poets, authors and painters.Albumen Silver Photograph, mounted on Board.printed in ink on support l.c.: VIEW OF PORTION OF THE CITY OF SANDHURST, AS SEEN FROM THE HILL, CAMP RESERVE / COPYRIGHT REGISTERED. printed in ink on support reverse c.: VIEWS OF VICTORIA. / (GENERAL SERIES.) / No. 4. / VIEW OF PORTION OF THE CITY OF SANDHURST AS SEEN FROM THE HILL, CAMP RESERVE. / The Camp Reserve is the principal public promenade in this City. The Rotunda in the foreground, formerly used / by the local bands on festive occasions, is now regarded as a relic of the past. To the right of the picture is shown the / City of Sandhurst claim, supposed to be on the Hustler's line of reef. St. Paul's Church tower may be seen in the / distance. To the left of the picture Williamstown-street branches out from Pall Mall. On one side of the street is the / far-famed Shamrock Hotel; on the other stands the Bank of Australasia, with St. James's Hall immediately behind it. printed in ink on support reverse l.c.l.: J.W. FORBES, Agent, printed in ink on support reverse l.c.: ANGLO-AUSTRALASIAN PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPANY, MELBOURNE. printed in ink on support reverse l.c.r.: 10 Temple Court, Collins Street West.nicholas caire (1837-1918), landscape photography

Nicholas Caire was born on Guernsey in the Channel Islands in 1837. He arrived in Adelaide with his parents in about 1860. In 1867, following photographic journeys in Gippsland, he opened a studio in Adelaide. From 1870 to 1876 he lived and worked in Talbot in Central Victoria. In 1876 he purchased T. F. Chuck's studios in the Royal Arcade Melbourne. In 1885, following the introduction of dry plate photography, he began a series of landscape series, which were commercially successful. As a photographer, he travelled extensively through Victoria, photographing places few of his contemporaries had previously seen. He died in 1918. Reference: Jack Cato, 'Caire, Nicholas John (1837–1918)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National UniversityAn original, rare photograph from the series 'Views of Victoria: General Series' by the photographer, Nicholas Caire (1837-1918). The series of 60 photographs that comprise the series was issued c. 1876 and reinforced a neo-Romantic view of the Australian landscape to which a growing nationalist movement would respond. Nicholas Caire was active as a photographer in Australia from 1858 until his death in 1918. His vision of the Australian bush and pioneer life had a counterpart in the works of Henry Lawson and other nationalist poets, authors and painters.Albumen silver photograph on boardprinted in ink on support l.c.: VIEW OF THE RAILWAY TUNNEL THROUGH THE BIG HILL NEAR MOUNT HERBERT. / COPYRIGHT REGISTERED. printed in ink on support reverse c.: VIEWS OF VICTORIA. / (GENERAL SERIES.) / No. 10. / VIEW OF THE RAILWAY TUNNEL THROUGH THE BIG HILL NEAR MOUNT HERBERT. / This tunnel is situated on the Mount Alexander and Murray Railway Line, between Castlemaine and Sandhurst, / and is 431 yards long; the completion of this and the remaining portion of the line to Bendigo was celebrated by / great public feasting. The Tunnel is perfectly level, and the spectator is enabled to distinguish objects through it, / as may be seen by the illustration. printed in ink on support reverse l.c.l.: J.W. FORBES, Agent, printed in ink on support reverse l.c.: ANGLO-AUSTRALASIAN PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPANY, MELBOURNE. printed in ink on support reverse l.c.r.: 10 Temple Court, Collins Street West.nicholas caire, landscape photography, mount herbert, railways - victoria

Nicholas Caire was born on Guernsey in the Channel Islands in 1837. He arrived in Adelaide with his parents in about 1860. In 1867, following photographic journeys in Gippsland, he opened a studio in Adelaide. From 1870 to 1876 he lived and worked in Talbot in Central Victoria. In 1876 he purchased T. F. Chuck's studios in the Royal Arcade Melbourne. In 1885, following the introduction of dry plate photography, he began a series of landscape series, which were commercially successful. As a photographer, he travelled extensively through Victoria, photographing places few of his contemporaries had previously seen. He died in 1918. Reference: Jack Cato, 'Caire, Nicholas John (1837–1918)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National UniversityAn original, rare photograph from the series 'Views of Victoria: General Series' by the photographer, Nicholas Caire (1837-1918). The series of 60 photographs that comprise the series was issued c. 1876 and reinforced a neo-Romantic view of the Australian landscape to which a growing nationalist movement would respond. Nicholas Caire was active as a photographer in Australia from 1858 until his death in 1918. His vision of the Australian bush and pioneer life had a counterpart in the works of Henry Lawson and other nationalist poets, authors and painters.Albumen silver photograph mounted on board‘The subject of this illustration is situated in one of the wildest and most romantic places in the Gipps Land ranges, about midway between Mount Munday and Mount Juliet. The foliage in this locality is very luxuriant, comprising mostly Fern Trees which are interwoven with various descriptions of grasses and stunted Fern leaves. Beneath this mass of vegetation flows a branch of the Contentment Creek.’landscape photography - victoria, nicholas caire, ferngrove - victoria

Nicholas Caire was born on Guernsey in the Channel Islands in 1837. He arrived in Adelaide with his parents in about 1860. In 1867, following photographic journeys in Gippsland, he opened a studio in Adelaide. From 1870 to 1876 he lived and worked in Talbot in Central Victoria. In 1876 he purchased T. F. Chuck's studios in the Royal Arcade Melbourne. In 1885, following the introduction of dry plate photography, he began a series of landscape series, which were commercially successful. As a photographer, he travelled extensively through Victoria, photographing places few of his contemporaries had previously seen. He died in 1918. Reference: Jack Cato, 'Caire, Nicholas John (1837–1918)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National UniversityAn original, rare photograph from the series 'Views of Victoria: General Series' by the photographer, Nicholas Caire (1837-1918). The series of 60 photographs that comprise the series was issued c. 1876 and reinforced a neo-Romantic view of the Australian landscape to which a growing nationalist movement would respond. Nicholas Caire was active as a photographer in Australia from 1858 until his death in 1918. His vision of the Australian bush and pioneer life had a counterpart in the works of Henry Lawson and other nationalist poets, authors and painters.Albumen silver photograph on boardprinted in ink on support l.c.: DANDENONG STATE FOREST, AT FERN TREE GULLY. / COPYRIGHT REGISTERED. printed in ink on support reverse c.: VIEWS OF VICTORIA. / (GENERAL SERIES.) / No. 12. / DANDENONG STATE FOREST, AT FERN TREE GULLY. / Fern Tree Gully is one of the favourite resorts for pleasure-seekers on holiday occasions. This scene is taken / from the camping ground at the entrance to the Gully. The residence in the centre of the picture is that of the / Forest-keeper, Mr. Kennedy, who has charge of the Dandenong State Forest. The trees on the hill at the back of / the residence, through apparently diminutive, are in reality gigantic ones, measuring in many instances from 15 to / 20 feet in circumference at the base. printed in ink on support reverse l.c.l.: J.W. FORBES, Agent, printed in ink on support reverse l.c.: ANGLO-AUSTRALASIAN PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPANY, MELBOURNE. printed in ink on support reverse l.c.r.: 10 Temple Court, Collins Street West.nicholas caire (1837-1918), landscape photography, ferntree gully

Nicholas Caire was born on Guernsey in the Channel Islands in 1837. He arrived in Adelaide with his parents in about 1860. In 1867, following photographic journeys in Gippsland, he opened a studio in Adelaide. From 1870 to 1876 he lived and worked in Talbot in Central Victoria. In 1876 he purchased T. F. Chuck's studios in the Royal Arcade Melbourne. In 1885, following the introduction of dry plate photography, he began a series of landscape series, which were commercially successful. As a photographer, he travelled extensively through Victoria, photographing places few of his contemporaries had previously seen. He died in 1918. Reference: Jack Cato, 'Caire, Nicholas John (1837–1918)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National UniversityAn original, rare photograph from the series 'Views of Victoria: General Series' by the photographer, Nicholas Caire (1837-1918). The series of 60 photographs that comprise the series was issued c. 1876 and reinforced a neo-Romantic view of the Australian landscape to which a growing nationalist movement would respond. Nicholas Caire was active as a photographer in Australia from 1858 until his death in 1918. His vision of the Australian bush and pioneer life had a counterpart in the works of Henry Lawson and other nationalist poets, authors and painters.Albumen silver photograph mounted on board. [Note: This is the first of two copies of this photograph in the collection]printed in ink on support l.c.: VIEW OF THE TOWNSHIP OF FERNSHAWE. / COPYRIGHT REGISTERED. printed in ink on support reverse c.: VIEWS OF VICTORIA. / (GENERAL SERIES.) / No. 14. / VIEW OF THE TOWNSHIP OF FERNSHAWE. / Fernshawe may be considered the most romantic town in the Colony of Victoria. It is situated at the foot of / the Black Spur, and is surrounded by a great many high hills, such as Mounts Riddell, Juliet, Munday, and others, / which form the crossing range into Gipps Land. It has, no doubt, derived its name from the fact that it is the / greatest Fern-growing district in the Colony. printed in ink on support reverse l.c.l.: J.W. FORBES, Agent, printed in ink on support reverse l.c.: ANGLO-AUSTRALASIAN PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPANY, MELBOURNE. printed in ink on support reverse l.c.r.: 10 Temple Court, Collins Street West.nicholas caire (1837-1918), landscape photography, fernshawe

Nicholas Caire was born on Guernsey in the Channel Islands in 1837. He arrived in Adelaide with his parents in about 1860. In 1867, following photographic journeys in Gippsland, he opened a studio in Adelaide. From 1870 to 1876 he lived and worked in Talbot in Central Victoria. In 1876 he purchased T. F. Chuck's studios in the Royal Arcade Melbourne. In 1885, following the introduction of dry plate photography, he began a series of landscape series, which were commercially successful. As a photographer, he travelled extensively through Victoria, photographing places few of his contemporaries had previously seen. He died in 1918. Reference: Jack Cato, 'Caire, Nicholas John (1837–1918)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography.An original, rare photograph from the series 'Views of Victoria: General Series' by the photographer, Nicholas Caire (1837-1918). The series of 60 photographs that comprise the series was issued c. 1876 and reinforced a neo-Romantic view of the Australian landscape to which a growing nationalist movement would respond. Nicholas Caire was active as a photographer in Australia from 1858 until his death in 1918. His vision of the Australian bush and pioneer life had a counterpart in the works of Henry Lawson and other nationalist poets, authors and painters.Albumen silver photograph mounted on boardPrinted inscription on reverse: A fifty-mile drive from Melbourne, via Lilydale, will bring the traveller to the township of Fernshawe. On nearing the entrance to the town, the scenery becomes most enchanting. In the distance can be seen the summit of Mount Munday. The ridge of trees in the middleground forms part of the foot of the Black Spur. The building in the foreground is the residence of the only Government Official, who represents the various titles of Post-master, State School Teacher, Registrar, &c.landscape photography - australia - 19th century, nicholas caire

'Collider' is a video site-response work that investigates the physical and conceptual notions of Bundoora Homestead Art Centre and surrounding Bundoora Parklands as matter, memory and phenomena. The project spanned three years of the artist’s life, visiting as both a local resident and an exhibiting artist at the Centre, involving a long-term process of “mapping” the site. The work looks to make visible, the hidden frequencies embedded within the buildings and parklands, including the social and geological. A complicated space, once a volcanic vent (Mt Cooper, 9.5 million years ago), home to over 60,000 years of continuous First Australian culture, long-term indigenous and (recent) settler land use, a place of respite for returned soldiers; visitors today generally experience the site as a place of leisure. Collider aims to disrupt this view, asking the viewer to look below the surface and experience a deeper sense of place. Using video sequences, this work places the Bundoora Homestead site within a shifting scale of material territories, molecular energies and entropic disorder. Collider includes both abstracted and live video sequences shot throughout the Homestead grounds and across the Bundoora Park and Mt Cooper area that appear to be capturing unknown, signalling phenomena. Time flowing and dissolving across the landscape."My practice sits within an expanded notion of landscape photography, combining video, photography, sound, installations and site responses. I’m interested in the idea of landscape as a transmutable zone where the unseen forces of the material world interact with embedded layers of time and history. Projects revolve around site research, science fiction/fact, the weirdness of ecologies and the realities of quantum matter. I try to represent what is sensed rather than understood, through both observational and uncanny visualisation. Using investigative material processes to make images (scanners, camera-less photography, digital/analogue manipulation, motion graphics) I attempt to question or disrupt the way others can view an image. This material approach is key to how and why I work. With 22 years experience in gallery-based exhibitions, art fairs and site specific/responsive projects, I have participated in over 50 exhibitions including projects for: Dark Mofo, Northern Centre of Contemporary Art, Testing Grounds, Charles Sturt University Gallery, Bargoonga Nganjin Library, c3 Contemporary Art Space, Centre Pompidou (FRA), Bus Projects, The Narrows, Peloton, 1st Floor, Linden, Seventh, Strange Neighbour, and many more. I have a BA (Fine Arts – Sculpture) RMIT, was the founder of seventh gallery and am the founder and current director of c3 Contemporary Art Space in Melbourne." - Jon Butt

The sarcastic title of this work pokes fun at the old fashioned idea that race should not be the subject of polite conversation. Deacon uses a white and a Black dolly to represent the unequal power dynamics that exist within Australian society. The dolls stand in for people who, based on the colour of their skin, experience the impact of racial inequality in vastly different ways. The cracked head of the white doll reveals an empty void. Symbolically violent, perhaps this emptiness suggests the dolls will never be able to fully comprehend one another’s experiences.This work was curated in RACE 2016 at Wyndham Art Gallery. Destiny Deacon (1956–2024) was a descendant of the KuKu (Far North Queensland) and Erub/Mer (Torres Strait) people. She exhibited nationally and internationally since the early 1990s in solo and group shows. Deacon held two major retrospectives, in 2004 and 2020, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne respectively. Her 2004 survey show, Walk & don’t look blak, toured to the Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Tokyo, the Tjibao Cultural Centre in Noumea, New Caledonia and Wellington City Gallery in New Zealand. In 2022, she was the recipient of the Red Ochre Award for Lifetime Achievement at First Nations Arts Awards. In the same year, Deacon’s work was shown at the Australian Embassy in Paris in an exhibition titled Destiny - The art of Destiny Deacon. In 2023, Deacon was included in the Sharjah Biennial 15, Thinking Historically in the Present, conceived by the late Okwui Enwezor and curated by Hoor Al Qasimi. In 2024, Deacon's work was exhibited in the 24th Biennale of Sydney, Ten Thousand Suns, curated by Cosmin Costinas and Inti Guerrero. Deacon’s work is held in most major public collections in Australia as well as Tate, London, Museum Moderner Kunst (MUMOK), Stifting Ludwig, Vienna, Austria and Museum Sammlung Essl, Austria.first nations photography, australian photography, australian indigenous art, race, racism, colonisation