VIVID Aboriginal Ancestry

How can Aboriginal Culture integrate its 60,000 year old heritage

Vivid is on in Sydney. It is a spectacle of light in the most popular spaces in the city, highlighted by the lighting of the sails of our iconic Sydneuy Opera House. 

I went to see Bengarra Indigenous Dance Company in their latest production, Terrain, linked to Lake Eyre. It was very beautiful and dynamic and took place in the Opera House, so when we came out, we were treated to the display projected onto the sails – once again curated by an Aboriginal artists with their signature dot painting designs.

I was reflecting on this culture which has been navigating the earthplane for over 60,000 years. When I link back to my ancestral roots, I go to parents, gradparents, Eastern Europe…and then it gets very fuzzy. With such a rich legacy of so many thousands of years of lineage, how can these people fall back into this dignified legacy in ways which nourish and develop their sense of self, of peoplehood, of a forward thinking sense of self, informed by a massive look backward into the passages of time that call for deep reflection.