The Dreaming

General concept of artist’s rights to elements of “The Dreaming”.

Example in Mick Kubarkku: http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/sub/crossingcountry/4_ARTISTS/artists_mick.html

When he was young, Mick Kubarkku watched two of his father’s brothers paint. In 1960, Kubarkku started to paint for the fledgling arts cooperative at Maningrida. Kubarkku worked with Jimmy Njiminjuma in the early years at Mumeka, and at times at Marrkolidjban. Kubarkku now lives with his extended family at Kubumi on the Mann River, where he set up the Yikarrakkal outstation in 1970.

We were always doing lots of paintings.

Our paintings depict our sacred places, which belong to us and us only. We paint yawkyawk and mimih spirits and other subjects, all of which are our Djang, such as the Ngalyod from Kubumi. It belongs to us. We paint those subjects. We can’t take subjects from other groups. If we were to paint another person’s Djang it could kill us.

The Dreaming…a sense of place.

Aboriginal people, their “country” and kinship all play roles in “The Dreaming”. Kinship assigns an individual’s rights to artistic expression in relation to specific totemic animals and spirit beings.

Land tenure and its corresponding Dreamings are primarily inherited. They can also be acquired via transactions. In relation to Aboriginal art, Dreamings are owned. Individuals own rights of representation of images and narratives that can be sung or represented visually.

‘Dreamtime’ and ‘The Dreaming’: who dreamed up these terms?

FIGURES IN THE LANDSCAPE-National Museum of Australia

Very important article about Namarrgon: http://www.aaia.com.au/story12.html

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2000/11/02/2690258.htm

So is Robert Bibora’s bark painting actually a grasshopper? Or did Namarrgon create aljurr, (“Leichardt’s grasshopper”)?