A conduit of cultural learning: holding, telling, remembering

A conduit of cultural learning: holding, telling, remembering

This paper relates the story of an informed cultural design within Indigenous education, business practice, and creative arts theory as a significant language of sovereignty. The paper is descriptive of and considerate to the theory and praxis enfolded within Indigenous cultural practice and cultural sustainability as reflected through When All the Rivers Run exhibition held at a university gallery in Gippsland. This study is an analysis of praxis from the point of view of the author-researcher who is on this occasion artist, educator and curator. Cultural sustainability, economic viability and art as pedagogy intersect: in this sense, as both place-pedagogy and more generally cultural wisdom. The other juncture that is interpreted through an Indigenous perspective in this research lies within the way a large number of Indigenous artists can come together to create a contiguous story where the art narrative itself is a performative experience. Knowledge holders were from diverse places, including Niue, Tasmania, Aotearoa, Flinders Ranges, Yorta Yorta, Wiradjuri, Taungurung, Gunnai-Kurnai. Within this context, cultural exchange resonates with ancient trade routes to create learning spaces of collaboration. This process is transformative learning for those who participate in cross-cultural exchange (non-Indigenous), and important for Indigenous participants by increasing depth of community learning from cultural practitioners who are Elders and knowledge holders. This paper asserts the importance of cultural exchange and sharing of cultural knowledge through several mediums. It discusses inspirational ways that contemporary visual technologies have facilitated the sharing of traditional knowledge within the shared spaces of exhibition and as a conduit for cultural holding and telling of knowledge. Traditional craft making in practice, is more than just about the artefact of material culture, as objects become vehicles of story and environment. Visual narrative regarding connection to natural history and Country in the public domain through exhibition and gatherings, are part of a methodology incorporating traditional value systems that also embrace contemporary ways of being and doing. These uphold ancient wisdom and disseminate knowledge for the future of our cultural practices.

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