WEBVTT 00:00:04.116 --> 00:00:06.774 Over 30 years ago, in 1987, 00:00:07.050 --> 00:00:09.828 I set up a small art gallery in London. 00:00:10.068 --> 00:00:14.582 It was a modest affair in a little shop space in Fitzrovia - 00:00:14.582 --> 00:00:19.134 at then, at that time, a bohemian and rather rundown quarter of London. 00:00:19.564 --> 00:00:22.884 The inspiration and impetus behind this venture 00:00:22.884 --> 00:00:26.674 was my desire to show Aboriginal art in London. 00:00:27.304 --> 00:00:30.277 It was at the time relatively unknown. 00:00:31.497 --> 00:00:33.301 Astonishingly to say, 00:00:33.301 --> 00:00:34.645 and shockingly to say, 00:00:34.645 --> 00:00:38.664 when I was born in Melbourne in 1955, 00:00:38.664 --> 00:00:43.136 Aboriginal people were not full citizens of their own country. 00:00:43.426 --> 00:00:45.870 They were wards of the state, 00:00:45.870 --> 00:00:47.554 and as wards of the state, 00:00:47.554 --> 00:00:51.681 they were not able to marry or to travel without permission. 00:00:51.681 --> 00:00:53.798 They were not allowed to own property, 00:00:53.798 --> 00:00:58.181 and they were not even legally responsible for their own children. 00:00:58.901 --> 00:01:01.049 And it was not until I was 12 00:01:01.049 --> 00:01:04.632 that in 1967, a referendum was held, 00:01:04.632 --> 00:01:06.735 and the Australian people voted 00:01:06.735 --> 00:01:10.613 that aboriginals could be counted amongst its citizens. 00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:13.215 And yet despite this, 00:01:13.215 --> 00:01:15.231 people living in the white - 00:01:15.231 --> 00:01:18.547 the white Europeans living in these coastal cities 00:01:18.547 --> 00:01:21.737 were still not interested in Aboriginal people. 00:01:21.737 --> 00:01:22.745 And to them, 00:01:22.745 --> 00:01:24.873 they remained largely invisible. 00:01:24.873 --> 00:01:26.537 They had no voice, 00:01:26.537 --> 00:01:29.271 and they had no one willing to listen. 00:01:29.981 --> 00:01:33.445 So, standing in front of these paintings in Alice Springs, 00:01:33.445 --> 00:01:36.110 I was full of a sense of wonder: 00:01:36.110 --> 00:01:37.774 How had this happened? 00:01:37.774 --> 00:01:40.535 They were postcards from another world. 00:01:41.505 --> 00:01:45.700 And although Aboriginal art was certainly new at that time to me - 00:01:45.700 --> 00:01:47.805 and new to many Australians - 00:01:47.805 --> 00:01:49.934 it was also old. 00:01:50.174 --> 00:01:51.502 Very old. 00:01:51.502 --> 00:01:56.708 In fact, it's the oldest continuous artistic tradition in the world, 00:01:56.708 --> 00:02:01.802 stretching back in an unbroken line some 50,000 years - 00:02:01.998 --> 00:02:04.255 far longer than Stonehenge, 00:02:04.255 --> 00:02:06.630 than the pyramids of ancient Egypt 00:02:07.020 --> 00:02:09.221 or of the caves of Lascaux - 00:02:09.221 --> 00:02:12.520 but also, at the same time, it was very new. 00:02:12.940 --> 00:02:17.405 These paintings, the traditional designs, 00:02:17.405 --> 00:02:20.694 had been painted on bodies in ceremonies, 00:02:21.374 --> 00:02:23.092 using natural ochre. 00:02:23.092 --> 00:02:28.866 They had been made as huge, grand mosaics in the sand 00:02:29.061 --> 00:02:32.447 and carved into trees and painted on rocks. 00:02:32.447 --> 00:02:35.982 But they were ephemeral and fugitive. 00:02:35.982 --> 00:02:42.482 And, as I realized in Alice Springs, a huge change had taken place. 00:02:42.482 --> 00:02:45.035 In a great act of generosity, 00:02:45.035 --> 00:02:51.524 Aboriginal people had set down their art in a permanent and portable form - 00:02:51.524 --> 00:02:53.505 on paper, on canvas. 00:02:53.505 --> 00:02:55.157 And what's more, 00:02:55.157 --> 00:02:58.982 they had allowed us, uninitiated people, 00:02:58.982 --> 00:03:00.206 to see it. 00:03:00.597 --> 00:03:03.879 And this was a great and extraordinary development 00:03:03.879 --> 00:03:06.317 that had happened since I had left the country. 00:03:06.857 --> 00:03:12.150 And it had begun in a little place called Papunya in 1971. 00:03:13.010 --> 00:03:15.222 In the '60s, the Australian government, 00:03:15.222 --> 00:03:17.834 in an effort to assimilate the Aboriginals, 00:03:17.834 --> 00:03:19.984 had built settlements in the desert, 00:03:19.984 --> 00:03:22.460 and they had rounded up the Aboriginal people 00:03:22.460 --> 00:03:26.025 and forced them into these barbed wire encampments. 00:03:26.025 --> 00:03:29.071 Papunya was built for 500 people, 00:03:29.071 --> 00:03:31.762 but a thousand Aboriginals were put in there, 00:03:31.762 --> 00:03:34.312 often people from different language groups 00:03:34.312 --> 00:03:37.342 who for millennia had perhaps been at war 00:03:37.342 --> 00:03:39.832 and didn't want to live in close proximity. 00:03:40.572 --> 00:03:44.377 People deprived of their right to roam across the land 00:03:44.377 --> 00:03:45.942 and follow their songlines 00:03:45.942 --> 00:03:48.617 sat in despair in the sand. 00:03:48.937 --> 00:03:52.278 Into this depressing scene of despair, 00:03:52.278 --> 00:03:53.604 in 1971, 00:03:53.604 --> 00:03:56.921 a young schoolteacher from New South Wales, 00:03:56.921 --> 00:03:58.233 Geoffrey Bardon, 00:03:58.233 --> 00:04:01.145 came to take up a post at the Papunya school. 00:04:02.225 --> 00:04:06.851 Geoffrey was entranced by the countryside that he saw around Papunya 00:04:06.851 --> 00:04:08.935 and the beautiful rock formations. 00:04:08.935 --> 00:04:10.478 And he was also intrigued 00:04:10.478 --> 00:04:14.845 as he watched the schoolchildren drawing in the sand in their break 00:04:14.845 --> 00:04:18.026 and telling stories to one another using their fingers. 00:04:19.072 --> 00:04:23.694 The old men watched his interest, and they were delighted. 00:04:23.694 --> 00:04:24.981 It has to be said 00:04:24.981 --> 00:04:29.008 that at that time in Australia it was almost apartheid. 00:04:29.298 --> 00:04:31.842 The European people working at the settlements - 00:04:31.842 --> 00:04:35.703 the health workers, the garage mechanics and the shopkeepers - 00:04:35.703 --> 00:04:37.694 had no truck with the Aboriginals 00:04:37.694 --> 00:04:40.144 and no interest in engaging with them at all. 00:04:40.618 --> 00:04:45.471 So Geoffrey's interest was something really special to the old men. 00:04:45.471 --> 00:04:48.582 And encouraged by it, they started talking to him. 00:04:48.582 --> 00:04:50.778 And you see them - 00:04:50.778 --> 00:04:55.035 you will see him sitting here with old Long Tom Onion. 00:04:55.035 --> 00:04:57.406 And the men explained to him 00:04:57.406 --> 00:05:01.608 how the land had been created by ancestors in the past. 00:05:02.098 --> 00:05:04.648 And Geoffrey suddenly thought, 00:05:04.648 --> 00:05:06.298 'This is astonishing. 00:05:06.298 --> 00:05:11.598 Why is it that I am teaching the children Western things 00:05:11.598 --> 00:05:15.464 when we're not even acknowledging this extraordinary culture 00:05:15.464 --> 00:05:17.725 of which they are a part?' 00:05:17.945 --> 00:05:21.017 And so, in consultation with the old men, 00:05:21.017 --> 00:05:25.398 it was decided to paint a mural on the school wall at Papunya. 00:05:25.398 --> 00:05:29.301 The minute the idea of painting the mural was mooted, 00:05:29.301 --> 00:05:32.164 the whole mood of the community changed. 00:05:32.164 --> 00:05:34.950 No longer did people sit in despair. 00:05:34.950 --> 00:05:39.135 They started excitedly talking about what would be an appropriate story 00:05:39.135 --> 00:05:40.379 to paint on the wall. 00:05:40.379 --> 00:05:42.824 Something that could be seen by everybody, 00:05:42.824 --> 00:05:45.167 not just the initiated. 00:05:45.167 --> 00:05:48.925 And eventually, it was decided to paint the Honey Ant Mural. 00:05:48.925 --> 00:05:54.526 And you see it here, painted in 1971, on the school wall at Papunya. 00:05:54.956 --> 00:05:58.194 Geoffrey had unleashed this torrent. 00:05:58.194 --> 00:06:02.824 And all across the desert, news of it spread like wildfire. 00:06:03.031 --> 00:06:05.866 The next community to take up the paintbrushes 00:06:05.866 --> 00:06:07.281 was Yuendumu. 00:06:07.511 --> 00:06:09.414 The Warlpiri people there 00:06:09.414 --> 00:06:13.599 had been forced to live in little, hot, tin Porsche cabins 00:06:13.599 --> 00:06:16.414 sent up by the government in an effort to civilize them. 00:06:16.414 --> 00:06:19.331 And so their first act of cultural resurgence 00:06:19.331 --> 00:06:22.764 was to paint the doors of these little hot tin cabins, 00:06:22.764 --> 00:06:25.962 although why it was deemed a civilizing influence 00:06:25.962 --> 00:06:28.968 to live in a hot tin box when it's regularly 40 degrees 00:06:28.968 --> 00:06:30.575 I don't know. 00:06:30.575 --> 00:06:34.985 But one thing united these disparate artists, 00:06:34.985 --> 00:06:40.914 and that was that the genesis of all their painting came from the land. 00:06:41.075 --> 00:06:44.220 This was something very different for the white settlers. 00:06:44.220 --> 00:06:48.375 The interior of Australia was regarded as something hostile 00:06:48.375 --> 00:06:50.310 and something very, very frightening. 00:06:50.570 --> 00:06:53.111 And you can see here 00:06:53.111 --> 00:06:56.792 a Western cartographer's view of the Great Sandy Desert, 00:06:56.792 --> 00:06:59.158 a vast, featureless plain: 00:06:59.158 --> 00:07:00.917 no distinguishing features, 00:07:00.917 --> 00:07:05.977 no mountains, no rocks, no rivers, no streams and no lakes. 00:07:06.817 --> 00:07:13.757 And this is an Aboriginal vision of exactly the same piece of country. 00:07:15.064 --> 00:07:17.899 But it is important also to realise 00:07:17.899 --> 00:07:22.124 that Aboriginal culture is not a single, homogeneous entity. 00:07:22.334 --> 00:07:28.078 This is Australia as it was when first encountered by the European. 00:07:28.078 --> 00:07:32.497 And all these different colours represent different language groups. 00:07:32.667 --> 00:07:34.971 Of course, some of them have gone, 00:07:34.971 --> 00:07:36.918 but many have remained. 00:07:36.918 --> 00:07:39.642 And the art from these different places 00:07:39.642 --> 00:07:41.266 is quite as distinctive 00:07:41.266 --> 00:07:44.500 as the different languages and different physical appearances 00:07:44.500 --> 00:07:46.685 of the people that live in them. 00:07:47.135 --> 00:07:52.067 One of the first exhibitions I did in my little gallery in Fitzrovia 00:07:52.067 --> 00:07:56.812 was by the great Anmatyerre artist from Papunya, Clifford Possum. 00:07:57.195 --> 00:08:01.977 I had met Clifford in a creek bed on my visit to Alice Springs. 00:08:02.577 --> 00:08:04.644 And he was sitting under a tree, 00:08:04.804 --> 00:08:05.969 and I said to him, 00:08:05.969 --> 00:08:09.265 'Clifford, would you like to have an exhibition in London?' 00:08:09.495 --> 00:08:11.899 He looked at me for a long time, 00:08:12.389 --> 00:08:15.264 and then he went, 'Queen.' 00:08:15.264 --> 00:08:16.951 And I went, 'Yes, of course. 00:08:16.951 --> 00:08:19.934 Of course, you can meet the Queen if you come to London.' 00:08:19.934 --> 00:08:21.858 So he looked at me for a long time, 00:08:21.858 --> 00:08:24.564 and then he went, 'Okay.' 00:08:24.564 --> 00:08:26.341 I sent him the money for an airfare, 00:08:26.341 --> 00:08:27.372 and a year later, 00:08:27.372 --> 00:08:29.534 I went to pick him up at Heathrow. 00:08:29.534 --> 00:08:32.667 And he arrived in his cowboy hat and cowboy shirt. 00:08:32.927 --> 00:08:36.559 When no sooner had we got in the car to go back to the gallery, 00:08:36.559 --> 00:08:38.622 then he said, 'Queen.' 00:08:38.622 --> 00:08:42.124 And of course, I had forgotten my promise that he could meet the Queen. 00:08:42.124 --> 00:08:46.101 But thinking that it would be so exciting for him to be in London 00:08:46.101 --> 00:08:49.388 and if we drove past Buckingham Palace that would be enough, 00:08:49.388 --> 00:08:50.404 so we did. 00:08:50.404 --> 00:08:51.971 And as we drove past, 00:08:51.971 --> 00:08:54.538 I said, ‘Clifford, that is where the Queen lives’, 00:08:54.538 --> 00:08:57.918 and he went, 'In. In.' 00:08:57.918 --> 00:09:00.068 (Laughter) 00:09:00.068 --> 00:09:02.085 And then the penny dropped 00:09:02.085 --> 00:09:06.436 that I, like generations of Europeans before me, 00:09:06.436 --> 00:09:09.635 had promised something 00:09:09.635 --> 00:09:15.041 that I had no intention and no ability to deliver to an Aboriginal person, 00:09:15.301 --> 00:09:19.261 and that he, on the strength of my promise, had trusted me. 00:09:19.261 --> 00:09:22.451 And as an elder of the Anmatyerre people, 00:09:22.451 --> 00:09:26.408 he was going to come to Britain to meet the leader of the British people. 00:09:26.698 --> 00:09:27.699 And I realised 00:09:27.699 --> 00:09:31.431 he would lose tremendous face if that was not the case. 00:09:32.331 --> 00:09:35.412 That night was the opening of his exhibition. 00:09:35.412 --> 00:09:37.940 It was an astonishing affair. 00:09:37.940 --> 00:09:42.673 These extraordinary, beautiful, mythopoetic canvases 00:09:42.673 --> 00:09:46.232 with strange, seemingly abstract designs 00:09:46.232 --> 00:09:48.980 coming from the middle of the desert. 00:09:48.980 --> 00:09:51.437 People were entranced and intrigued, 00:09:51.437 --> 00:09:54.342 and everyone was happy except me. 00:09:54.342 --> 00:09:57.761 And my unhappiness must have shown on my face 00:09:57.761 --> 00:10:02.395 because a very nice man came up to me, and he said, 00:10:02.395 --> 00:10:03.761 'What's the matter, Rebecca? 00:10:03.761 --> 00:10:05.619 I mean this is a wonderful exhibition. 00:10:05.619 --> 00:10:07.268 You should be so happy.' 00:10:07.268 --> 00:10:09.784 And I explained to him what I had done. 00:10:09.784 --> 00:10:12.865 And he then understood. 00:10:13.045 --> 00:10:16.989 The next morning, I was just about to go and wake up Clifford. 00:10:16.989 --> 00:10:22.032 I had not had much sleep, and I felt so sad about what I had done. 00:10:22.222 --> 00:10:25.327 And just before I did so, the phone rang: 00:10:25.327 --> 00:10:26.852 ‘Good morning, Rebecca.' 00:10:26.852 --> 00:10:29.542 It was the nice man from the evening before. 00:10:29.542 --> 00:10:31.083 ‘It's George Harwood here, 00:10:31.083 --> 00:10:33.225 and I've spoken to my cousin the Queen, 00:10:33.225 --> 00:10:34.965 and she would be delighted 00:10:34.965 --> 00:10:35.972 (Laughter) 00:10:35.972 --> 00:10:40.361 to see you and Clifford at the palace at two o'clock this afternoon.' 00:10:40.361 --> 00:10:42.159 The paintings - 00:10:42.159 --> 00:10:45.093 in order for you to understand the aboriginal paintings, 00:10:45.093 --> 00:10:46.469 it's important to know 00:10:46.469 --> 00:10:51.075 that although they seem abstract to us 00:10:51.075 --> 00:10:52.088 they're not. 00:10:52.088 --> 00:10:56.761 They are paradoxically rich in significant meaning. 00:10:56.761 --> 00:11:03.052 And so, a lot of these images are created as though from an aerial perspective - 00:11:03.052 --> 00:11:07.403 as though you were a bird flying over the land, looking down. 00:11:07.403 --> 00:11:09.467 And so, if we were going to have, 00:11:09.467 --> 00:11:12.731 or if we were having this talk in the desert in Australia - 00:11:12.731 --> 00:11:14.341 which would be really fun - 00:11:14.341 --> 00:11:17.457 you would all be sitting cross-legged in the sand, 00:11:17.457 --> 00:11:22.538 and the imprint of your buttocks would make a U-shape as seen from above. 00:11:22.538 --> 00:11:25.010 So whenever you see that shape in a painting, 00:11:25.010 --> 00:11:27.827 it represents a human presence. 00:11:27.827 --> 00:11:30.582 So these paintings, also, 00:11:30.582 --> 00:11:33.938 are not just maps of where to find food and water, 00:11:33.938 --> 00:11:37.666 which is incredibly important for a nomadic people, 00:11:37.666 --> 00:11:43.699 but also they are tales of the creation of the land 00:11:43.699 --> 00:11:44.853 and how to live in it. 00:11:44.853 --> 00:11:49.672 And that was the subject matter of the exhibition of Clifford's work. 00:11:51.620 --> 00:11:53.496 Now I… 00:11:55.576 --> 00:11:58.131 Because of what was happening in Australia, 00:11:58.521 --> 00:12:01.169 it was being observed 00:12:01.169 --> 00:12:04.617 that Aboriginal people were getting a new voice, 00:12:04.617 --> 00:12:10.297 a new pride in their work and in themselves. 00:12:10.297 --> 00:12:12.814 And this was not unacknowledged 00:12:12.814 --> 00:12:17.351 by other indigenous countries across the world. 00:12:17.771 --> 00:12:24.165 And I was in a very privileged position to witness this at firsthand. 00:12:24.429 --> 00:12:29.492 Because I had worked an exhibited Aboriginal art, 00:12:29.492 --> 00:12:33.960 I started getting requests from all over the world 00:12:33.960 --> 00:12:36.356 to show indigenous groups. 00:12:36.309 --> 00:12:41.690 And in the early '90s, it was a group of Kalahari Bushmen, 00:12:41.980 --> 00:12:45.293 from the San people, from Botswana. 00:12:45.293 --> 00:12:50.526 They, like the Aboriginals, had started transferring their ancient designs 00:12:50.526 --> 00:12:55.348 into a permanent and portable manner. 00:12:55.348 --> 00:12:57.729 So no longer painting on rocks or caves, 00:12:57.729 --> 00:13:01.210 but they were painting on canvas and prints. 00:13:01.210 --> 00:13:04.373 And their exhibition in London was really wonderful. 00:13:04.373 --> 00:13:07.586 They had this extraordinary vision of negative space. 00:13:07.586 --> 00:13:11.200 So, often you thought you were looking at a particular creature, 00:13:11.200 --> 00:13:15.861 but it was the space in the background that really was the important thing. 00:13:15.861 --> 00:13:17.047 Now, 00:13:18.467 --> 00:13:23.787 in Western art - art in our Western culture - 00:13:23.837 --> 00:13:26.272 art has a special status, 00:13:26.272 --> 00:13:29.400 and, indeed, it has a special place. 00:13:29.400 --> 00:13:33.879 But it can sometimes seem like an aesthetic add-on - 00:13:36.064 --> 00:13:40.613 something that's not really as important as the business of living. 00:13:41.163 --> 00:13:44.086 But in tribal indigenous cultures, 00:13:44.086 --> 00:13:47.387 art is absolutely at the heart of things. 00:13:48.686 --> 00:13:49.999 It is central 00:13:49.999 --> 00:13:56.801 to the political, the personal, the social and the sacred. 00:13:56.801 --> 00:13:59.000 It is indivisible from society. 00:13:59.790 --> 00:14:02.421 This is the painting I wanted to show you. 00:14:03.304 --> 00:14:05.677 In indigenous society, 00:14:06.096 --> 00:14:09.132 art is indivisible from life. 00:14:09.372 --> 00:14:13.635 And some of these paintings now 00:14:13.635 --> 00:14:16.476 are not just beautiful, extraordinary objects; 00:14:16.476 --> 00:14:20.371 they are also legal documents. 00:14:20.611 --> 00:14:22.299 And on this painting, 00:14:22.299 --> 00:14:25.328 you see the artists from Fitzroy Crossing. 00:14:26.198 --> 00:14:28.311 When they came to visit me, 00:14:28.311 --> 00:14:30.169 I said, 'What would you like to do?' 00:14:30.169 --> 00:14:31.170 And they said, 00:14:31.170 --> 00:14:34.227 'We would like to go and see where the trouble started.' 00:14:34.227 --> 00:14:36.731 I said, 'What do you mean where the trouble started?' 00:14:36.731 --> 00:14:37.730 And they said, 00:14:37.730 --> 00:14:40.610 'We would like to go and see where Captain Cook came from.' 00:14:40.610 --> 00:14:44.884 And so we went to Whitby on the train, and it was an extraordinary journey. 00:14:44.884 --> 00:14:48.522 And when they saw Captain Cook's simple, little wooden chair 00:14:48.522 --> 00:14:50.024 and his little, simple house, 00:14:50.024 --> 00:14:53.694 they went, 'Okay, now we understand. 00:14:53.694 --> 00:14:55.314 He was just like us.' 00:14:55.364 --> 00:14:57.357 And it was an amazing visit. 00:14:57.357 --> 00:14:59.026 But here they are, 00:14:59.026 --> 00:15:03.558 sitting on a vast painting in the sand. 00:15:03.558 --> 00:15:06.348 And I used to be a lawyer, 00:15:06.348 --> 00:15:09.111 and many of the people that went through law school with me 00:15:09.111 --> 00:15:10.994 are now judges and barristers. 00:15:10.994 --> 00:15:13.265 And they sometimes go out to the desert, 00:15:13.265 --> 00:15:17.586 and they sit in their wigs and gowns around the peripheries of vast paintings 00:15:17.586 --> 00:15:18.795 like this. 00:15:18.795 --> 00:15:20.716 And one by one, 00:15:20.716 --> 00:15:24.917 the artists will stand up on their bit of the painting, 00:15:25.177 --> 00:15:26.783 and they will say, 00:15:26.783 --> 00:15:29.650 'I know this is my land. 00:15:29.650 --> 00:15:32.941 I can prove it was my land because it was my grandmother's land, 00:15:32.941 --> 00:15:34.574 my great-great grandmother's land, 00:15:34.584 --> 00:15:36.487 my great-great-great grandmother's land. 00:15:36.487 --> 00:15:39.332 And I know where the water holes are.' 00:15:39.332 --> 00:15:43.407 And you can see that there are many, many circles in this painting, 00:15:43.407 --> 00:15:45.562 which represent the water holes. 00:15:45.562 --> 00:15:47.135 Now, you'll recall 00:15:47.135 --> 00:15:50.938 the Western cartographers’ view of the Great Sandy Desert, 00:15:50.938 --> 00:15:53.857 where the Walmajarri people live. 00:15:53.857 --> 00:15:54.959 And there was nothing. 00:15:54.959 --> 00:15:56.462 There were no water holes. 00:15:56.462 --> 00:15:58.530 But they know how to find them. 00:15:58.530 --> 00:16:00.159 Having lived there for millennia, 00:16:00.159 --> 00:16:02.907 they know how to find them and how to look after them. 00:16:02.907 --> 00:16:07.342 And, indeed, when the British Parliament declared Australia 'terra nullius', 00:16:07.342 --> 00:16:08.957 uninhabited land, 00:16:08.957 --> 00:16:11.257 one of the tenets by which they did so 00:16:11.257 --> 00:16:15.550 was the fact that the indigenous people had no system of land management 00:16:15.550 --> 00:16:17.212 or agriculture, 00:16:17.212 --> 00:16:19.664 whereas, of course, we know now 00:16:19.664 --> 00:16:23.821 that they had a really sophisticated and extraordinary way of living 00:16:23.821 --> 00:16:27.305 in the remarkable and rare continent that is Australia. 00:16:27.771 --> 00:16:30.580 And I think that there's such a - 00:16:30.580 --> 00:16:33.405 I love this painting, and I love the people sitting on it 00:16:33.405 --> 00:16:37.735 because you just see their generosity and their desire to share - 00:16:37.735 --> 00:16:40.435 despite the vicissitudes that we have visited upon them - 00:16:40.435 --> 00:16:42.634 their extraordinary culture. 00:16:42.634 --> 00:16:45.950 And I do think that through art, 00:16:46.500 --> 00:16:51.508 knowledge and power of indigenous people can be unbound. 00:16:52.052 --> 00:16:53.722 But I also think 00:16:53.722 --> 00:16:57.577 that as a means of communication, 00:16:57.577 --> 00:17:00.553 of sharing knowledge and understanding, 00:17:00.918 --> 00:17:04.802 it also can serve to bind us together. 00:17:04.802 --> 00:17:06.107 Thank you. 00:17:06.107 --> 00:17:07.962 (Applause)