Elders lift the lid on cultural box

AFEW years ago cultural leader Ruth Langford realised the Aboriginal community needed a dedicated meeting and exhibition space in Hobart to develop and show creative work.

Meanwhile, Aboriginal elder Uncle Jimmy Everett was hatching a plan back home on Cape Barren Island. He took it to Ruth.

“I’ve got a vision to lift the lid on the cultural box, and I want you on board,” the poet, playwright and cultural adviser told her. Having partnered with Contemporary Art Tasmania, Everett wanted to recruit Ruth to produce an ambitious program of projects and events, including a major First Nations festival, a dedicated arts space,and a mentorship program.

Ruth had serious form, including as the founder and director of the biennial Nayri Niara Good Spirit First Nations festival. Serendipitously, she was negotiating a five-year lease on a purpose-built shed at Macquarie Point as part of the site’s early activation.

She agreed, but said “Let’s work on building up our art community first through the LongHouse.’’

The art space opened last year under the umbrella of Nayri Niara, the for-profit Aboriginal-run social enterprise Ruth founded and directs. It has hosted a number of contemplative gatherings and small shows.

Thursday, though, when an exhibition of 25 Aboriginal artists launched, was nextlevel. Joyously next-level.

“This is an act of sovereignty,” Ruth said in her opening remarks. “We are not a people with a culture of beggars. We are a culture of traders. And we are here to trade …”

Within hours, works ranging from traditional canoes to echidna-quill and maireener-shell necklaces and poker-worked roo skins were offered for sale at the Darwin Art Fair, which is being held virtually this year.

From next Friday, the LongHouse will display the works live and online at nayriniaragoodspirit.com

When I went down to see

Ruth on Wednesday, the LongHouse was buzzing. Ruth’s right-hand women were tending to a hundred details, while her brother Tasman and other young blokes were doing the heavy lifting. Restaurateur Chloe Proud, whose restaurant Oddfellows was a recent COVID-19 casualty, arrived to set up for a yarning-with-theelders dinner.

Then elder Aunty VickiLaine Green arrived, having travelled from Flinders Island by aircraft, then by road with her daughter Tarni and niece

Teresa from Launceston.

It felt like Christmas as they unboxed artworks to show Ruth. We talked about Vicki’s emu-feather basket.

“The emu nest is about reminding people there was a native emu in Tasmania and that by 1865 it was extinct,” she said.

“A nest without an egg is a statement. Without that egg, that emu will never be on this Earth again.

“In the vast chase for money, so many animals have become extinct in a short time.”