Inclusion at The Living Pavilion: institutions making space for Indigenous peoples and other hornets’ nests
Rimi Khan.
In Ngargee Coming Together to Celebrate Southeast Australian Aboriginal Art edited by Frances Edmonds, Sabra Thorner and Maree Clarke
2024
Aboriginal Studies Press
The dynamism, innovation and power of Aboriginal art from southeast Australia is on full display in a new book released by Aboriginal Studies Press
'The cover of this book tells a visual story of the rivers that connect us all. This includes past, present, and future generations of my family, the Clarkes. My great-nephew Mitch collaborated with me, creating the outline for the winding waterway.
The two red symbols depict men and women, designs I have now handed down to my nieces and nephews to use in their own art practices. The six blue wavy/rectangular shapes along the top represent different generations of our family.'
The Living Pavilion was an arts/science event held at the University of Melbourne’s Parkville campus in May 2019. An Indigenous-led project, The Living Pavilion was curated to assert the site as a Wurundjeri/Woi Wurrung place. By highlighting the custodianship of the Traditional Owners, the event reflected a commitment from the university to showcase, incorporate and celebrate Aboriginal knowledge systems. Utilising 40,000 indigenous plants from the greater Kulin Nation of Victoria, The Living Pavilion strived to reassign the cultural meanings and possibilities for Indigenous belonging on campus. The project was strongly informed by the University’s Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) and its strategies for engaging with Indigenous peoples and knowledge systems. However, although RAPs are aimed at bridging Indigenous/settler relations they are undermined by the processes and institutional confines within which they are enacted. This chapter explores these tensions, alongside questions of how Indigenous-led projects may serve to either reshape or bolster institutional control. It argues that a project like The Living Pavilion has the potential to empower Aboriginal people but can equally highlight the continuing power of colonial institutions.