Cultural complexities

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples make up a high proportion of the Northern Territory population and are very visible in the community. On my morning walk along the esplanade on Sunday I met the artist above, who invited me to see her work at the Mindil Beach Sunset market that evening. Later in the week we met artists selling their work directly to the public at Wangi Falls. They spoke with significant feeling about the way they are treated by galleries, who pay the artist $100 for a work then marketed to tourists for several thousand dollars. Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists are allegedly signed up to a gallery and are unable to sell their work independently. At the Sunset market the music was playing and some members of the audience dancing in a display of culture of a different kind.

Our outing on Tuesday of last week started with a drive almost to the edge of Litchfield National Park, and a visit to the tin mine. Fully operational for only a few years, and wreaking serious health damage to those who spent their days breathing in silicon in while mining the underground seams of tin, this mine also seemed to operate as a multi-cultural workplace with both colonists and traditional owners of the land working in collegial, and in several cases conjugal, partnerships. The mine site was well laid out, with a short walking track and well-written interpretive signs giving a good impression of the lifestyle of those early miners and their families.

Our luxurious historic retreat in Batchelor was just along the road from the Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education . The hospitable library staff allowed me to use their internet connection to liaise with colleagues back in Sydney regarding public health education matters. Graduates from the Institute are working in many places in Australia, including many in their communities of origin. Exciting to see such a worthwhile enterprise doing well. In a further twist of history and culture, the guest house was the home of the manager for the uranium mine in the 1950s. The material mainly sold to the US of course.

On Wednesday we visited Adelaide River and learnt more about the relentless bombing experienced in the whole top end of Australia during World War 2. The War Commission Cemetery was sobering, as such sites always are. We walked to dinner that evening at the Butterfly Farm - literally capturing something of the beautiful fauna of the region and run by an Englishman.

WE concluded our trip to the top end with further exploration in Darwin on the Thursday. We concluded our trip with a visit to the excellent Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory where we saw not only the current exhibition, but the outstanding collections of Aboriginal Art with excellent explanatory captions. Such art was originally very sacred and could only be viewed by specific people or groups of people. Much thought and effort has gone into adapting styles of work to make them available to a wider audience. For this I am glad, as the art is awe-inspiring.

All in all an eclectic interwoven set of experiences of history and culture within a relatively limited geographical area. And now I see there is a job advertised in Katherine - further south and allegedly with the lowest petrol prices in the Territory (according to my bus driver cousin who should know!) I am tempted by the climate and the opportunity to make a real difference in addressing the health disparities of the traditional owners and occupiers of this country. But a 5 hour plane commute from Sydney is not really very friendly to the planet. I do have some other opportunities closer to home that I will explore first.

And to conclude: a random trivial fact. Left-handed people are over-represented among USA Presidents, and both the current contenders are left handed. Trivial? YES. Useful? NO. Interesting? MAYBE