NAIDOC Week 2016 Morning Tea

Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery Aboriginal Reference Group Chair, 

Patsy Cameron invites you to join the group for a Morning Tea and special presentation to celebrate

NAIDOC Week 2016

Songlines: The living narrative of our nation

With Guest Speaker Greg Lehman, presenting The Gallery of the First Tasmanians

When     Thursday 7 July 2016, 10.30am

Where    Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery

              2 Wellington Street, Launceston

RSVP essential by Tuesday 5 July 2016

T 03 6323 3798  E bookings@qvmag.tas.gov.au

Places are strictly limited so please book early to avoid disappointment. Your RSVP email or phone call will be attended during the hours of 8.30am to 4.30pm, Monday to Friday.

 About the guest Speaker: Greg Lehman

Greg is descended from the Trawulwuy people of North East Tasmania. He graduated from the University of Tasmania in 1986 with a BSc in Life Sciences and Geography and completed a thesis on Aboriginal identity and co-operative land management in 1996. Greg worked as a research officer for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and was the inaugural Secretary of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Land Council. He recently completed a Masters in the History of Art and Visual Cultures at the University of Oxford and is currently researching the representation of Tasmanian Aborigines in colonial art as part of a PhD at the UTas. A previous Head of Riawunna, Centre for Aboriginal Education at UTas, he has worked in Aboriginal education and heritage management for over twenty-five years. Greg has been a board member of Skills Tasmania, member and Chair of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery’s Aboriginal Advisory Council and is currently a member of the National Museum of Australia’s Indigenous Advisory Council. He is a regular contributor of reviews and essays to a number of journals. 

Greg has two children, Neika (27) and Lewan (23) and loves nothing more than ‘being on country with family’.

About the theme NAIDOC Week 2016

Songlines: The living narrative of our nation

For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the Dreamtime describes a time when the earth, people and animals were created by our ancestral spiritual beings. They created the rivers, lakes, plants, land formations and living creatures.Dreaming tracks crisscross Australia and trace the journeys of our ancestral spirits as they created the land, animals and lores. These dreaming tracks are sometimes called ‘Songlines’ as they record the travels of these ancestral spirits who 'sung' the land into life.

These Songlines are recorded in traditional songs, stories, dance and art. They carry significant spiritual and cultural connection to knowledge, customs, ceremony and Lore of many Aboriginal nations and Torres Strait Islander language groups.

Songlines are intricate maps of land, sea and country. They describe travel and trade routes, the location of waterholes and the presence of food. In many cases, Songlines on the earth are mirrored by sky Songlines, which allowed people to navigate vast distances of this nation and its waters.

The extensive network of Songlines can vary in length from a few kilometres to hundreds of kilometres, crossing through traditional Country of many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language groups. For example, the Seven Sisters Songline covers more than half the width of the continent, from deep in the Central Desert out to the West Coast while others connect the Gulf of Carpentaria with the Snowy Mountains near Canberra.

Aboriginal language groups are connected through the sharing of Songlines with each language group responsible for parts of a Songline.

Through songs, art, dance and ceremony, Torres Strait Islanders also maintain creation stories which celebrate their connection to land and sea.  

Songlines have been passed down for thousands of years and are central to the existence of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They are imperative to the preservation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural practices.

From left, QVMAG Director Richard Mulvaney, Patsy Cameron and Greg Lehman. From http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-10/img_6391.jpg/6766354