Art

[ysabetwordsmith]

A masterpiece in the making? Movement aims to unite artists from every country in the world

Project 195 is built around the premise that art is global society’s ‘only true universal language’

Anew movement aims to connect creators from every country across the world, asking if art could be the ‘one language that unites us all’.

Project 195, launched by art platform 13AM Studio, began on 17 February and will run until 31 August. Creatives from 71 nationalities are already on board.

George Ripton, founder of 13AM Studio, explained: “Art is the purest form of connection – it crosses borders, cultures and languages without hesitation. 195 in 195 isn’t just about numbers, it’s about proving that creativity can unite us in ways nothing else can.”


This would be a great opportunity for under-recognized nations, such as tribal reservations, to get some cultural representation.

Comments

[crunchysteve]

Recently, there has been significant academic work done to understand Australian First Nations "knowledges," and this work has resulted in a series of books, "First Knowledges." I've just started reading "First Knowledges: Law" by Marcia Langton and Aaron Corn. (ISBN 978-1-76076-283-4, ebook and ISBN 978-1-76076-282-7, paperback.)

While, Langton is an anthropologist and indigenous, I was puzzled by how Aaron Corn, a musicologist, was doing a book on law. His qualifications are impressive and he has worked with many famous, indigenous Australian artists, it seemed an odd setting. So I looked up an image of an indigenous painting he references: The Yolŋu Knowledge Constitution by Gumbula.



What I found was another work Dr Corn did with another Elder, Steven Wantarri Jampijinpa Patrick, describing how to use Semantic Web technologies to describe indigenous law and doctrine. https://publications.archivists.org.au/index.php/asa/article/view/10347/10427

This document slapped me right back in my box. Of course he's the perfect academic for helping codify Australian First Nations' Law! Their law is codified in art, ritual and performance. Their performance rituals, corroboree, remind and teach law. Some of Australia's most recent land rights activists have been popular music artists, the Yunupingu brothers and Gumbula being very prominent, and Dr Corn has worked with Galloway Yunupingu and Gumbula, both.

Long winds to my point, though. European cultures are fixated on written knowledge. Writing though, like fire, is a great servant and a bad master. We lose key points because of the density of texts all the time. We argue tosses over misrepresented meanings.

Music, rhythm, lyrics and dance aid memory. I know this as a musician who spent more than 3 decades performing. I can't remember what's on my to-do list today, but I can remember the lyrics of every song I ever wrote and most of the covers that I actually had singing parts in.

As I write this, I'm sitting on a sofa under a dear friend's painting by an indigenous artist (name eludes us both, maybe we should relearn it and sing it ;-) that, after reading Bruce Pascoe's "Dark Emu" a few years ago, I had an epiphany about - it's a map of country and seasons. Indigenous Australians record their knowledges in images and learn the knowledges in ceremony and story telling, and their culture is as rich as any human culture on earth.

Who better to help understand this than a musicologist?!

John Lee Hooker was once asked what the Blues was. He replied, "Life. Blues is life."

In the "Great South Land," music is law.

[crunchysteve]

I should add that I'm an "anglo" descended from a "10 quid pommy" (dad) and the 7th generation descended from convicts on mum's side. I was born in Tasmania/Lutruita, a location of horrendous genocide and now live on Wurrundgeri/Woi Wirrung land. (Melbourne, Victoria) I acknowledge and pay respects to First People's Elders, past, present and emerging. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.