This week has been such an interesting ride of reflection and transition. Not only have we gone from country to country, but we began a transition to a whole new viewpoint on culture and values. The last nights in Queenstown, ranging from a winery tour to review sessions that gave us time to have overall reflections on we experienced in New Zealand, were so important to cement the value of all the perspectives that we learned in terms of Environmental Science and Cultural Anthropology. It was harder than expected to say goodbye to our lovely guides, but getting through the airport and customs was one of the easiest airport experiences that most of us have had since security didn’t make us take our shoes off and customs didn’t really check any of our bags. The whole process was only like 5 minutes in security overall.
During our first week in Australia we finally got to experience a cultural anthropology lecture by Thomas Heenan on Australian Culture and Diversity. This talk was such a culture shock in comparison to New Zealand where Maori people and their culture had such a large impact and importance in Kiwi society, because in Australia it is the opposite. It was saddening to draw a parallel to the United States because it shows how ignorant general populations are on their indigenous peoples mainly because it is not taught in schools and ignored.
I was approached by a woman on the street on the 7th purely because I was of African descent and there is not a large population of us in Australia. She wanted to know if I would be part of her photo/video project that serves the purpose of being a reminder of existence. She told me that she wants to use her project as a reminder that even though you may not see black people around a lot of the time, the photos and videos of us existing and being ourselves in the cities are a record of beautiful existence. A person may not be able to see someone like them in real life, but the knowledge that there are others is enough to inspire people to remember that they are beautiful and supported no matter what. She also talked to me about the mentality of Australians towards aboriginal people on a governmental level. Whenever she asked other Aussies how they felt about the treatment of Aboriginal peoples generally they would say “I think a lot is being done by the government to help them” but not a single person could say what was being done. It really ties into Tom’s talk about mythologising of white australia as a saviour and builder of Australia even if nothing is being done on a large scale.
After this we were guided by Xena, our program facilitator, around downtown Melbourne to look at the street art scene at some important spots like Hosier Lane and Centre Place. Then we visited the Kings Arcade with beautiful architecture and specialty stores.
Next we rushed back to a guided tour at the Ian Potter Centre which is part of the National Gallery of Victoria. The painting we started the tour with were an opportunity for the guide to explain how biased a lot of representations of First Nation People in Australia is towards a Eurocentric perspective. It is important that they started with the notion of having extremely limited knowledge on First Nation art and the people that make it so that we know that we would have to look deeper and not take everything at face value. The next pieces we saw explained how important art is for telling stories and the immense amount of information that is stored in the tradition of bark paintings. The last section of the tour was about modern First Nation artists that shined light on their marginalisation and the effects that has had on their communities and a warning to restore value in the environment.
-Justin