Dislocation, Exploration, Invigoration: Exploring the Cross-cultural Intersection of Art and Friendship

ABSTRACT

If love can blind, are there are also scenarios in which relationality invokes clarity of knowledge and closeness of hearing? In this collaborative piece, Bardi artist and weaver Juanita Mulholland and researcher Sarah Bacaller explore the intersection between friendship and Australian Indigenous art forms. They reflect on the development and ethos of Juanita’s artistic practice, as it pertains to her sense of Indigenous identity and selfhood, including in the context of dislocation and loss. The dialogue is prefaced by reflections on recent criticism by Fisher [2012. The Art/Ethnography Binary: Post-Colonial Tensions Within the Field of Australian Aboriginal Art. Cultural Sociology, 6 (2), 251–270] on the ethnography–art binary in approaches to interpreting Australian Indigenous art in its diverse and varied forms. By exploring the dangers inherent in both objectivist (‘ethographic’) and subjectivist (art ‘on its own terms’) approaches, and building on the work of Biddle and Stefanoff [2015. What is Same but Different and why Does it Matter? Cultural Studies Review, 21 (1), 97–120], the authors explore how ethical relationality and connection can lead to a fuller understanding and appreciation of artworks and their artists, especially in relation to non-Indigenous engagement with Australian Indigenous artistry.

KEYWORDS:

• Bardi
• weaving
• identity
• artistic practice
• Aboriginal art
• relational epistemologies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 These reflections draw on the philosophical work of Bubbio (2017), who engages with Kantian and Hegelian traditions of thought in interpreting options beyond objectivist or subjectivist positions.

2 ‘Pindan (locally, bindan, meaning scrub, bush or inland), is used throughout the Kimberley to describe a grassland wooded by a sparse upper layer of trees, and a dense, thicket-forming middle layer of Acacia.’ Smith and Kalotas (1985: 321).

3 Juanita refers to the garden designed and implemented at Monash University, Clayton, in 1985 by the late Dr. Beth Gott OAM, a respected plant physiologist and ethnobotanist.

4 As mentioned, located in Hastings, VIC. See www.willumwarrain.com.au. Willum Warrain is also home to an extensive bush nursery.

5 Ghost nets are discarded fishing nets that wreak havoc in ocean environments. Ghost net artists takes discarded gear and refashion it into artworks; art-craft here is also ecological activism. See https://tierramar.com.au/ghostnets-australia/.

6 See ‘Map of Indigenous Australia’ and Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, https://aitsis.gov.au/explore/map-indigenous-australia and ‘Living Languages’, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/living-languages.

7 For philosophical background, including Immanuel Kant’s role in this perspective and its implications, see Bubbio (2017).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Divinity, under the research grant ‘Openings for collaborative theology through classical Yolŋu and Warlpiri epistemologies’.