Stories told through art

TASMANIAN Aboriginal history is in the spotlight this month with the launch of two major arts shows in Victoria and Tasmania.

The state’s history of genocide and invasion feature prominently in Colony: Frontier Wars at the National Gallery of Victoria, while in Hobart an ambitious musical production presents this island’s history in haunting music, poetry and images.

A Tasmanian Requiem, presented like a Requiem Mass with nine movements divided into three acts, seeks to “atone for the past”, said producer Frances Butler, who created the work with composer Helen Thomson.

“[It’s] our way of saying we are really sorry about what happened, and that we understand we continue to benefit from what happened,” Ms Butler said.

“We have an obligation to do something about it, to acknowledge it.”

The first act of the work, which will have only five performances (of which two are school-only), is the ancient history of Tasmanian Aboriginal people, the second is the European invasion, and the third act captures the resurgence of the Aboriginal voice in modern Tasmania.

In Victoria, Tasmania’s history is likewise being explored by artists as a way of opening up a painful but necessary conversation.

“Today, returning to traditional lands, remembering ancestors lost and reconnecting with culture are ways of memorialisation and healing for Tasmanian Aboriginal people and form the basis of many of these work,” NGV curator Myles Russell-Cook said.

Read more about the works in TasWeekend, inside today.