Böcker av Marcia Langton

A landmark publication on the history of Indigenous Australian art that calls us to bear witness to 65,000 years of continuous culture, Indigenous knowledge and powerful art. 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art stares into the dark heart of Australia's brutal colonial history and offers new insights into the first art of this country. Long before Britain's invasion of Australia in 1788, First Peoples' cultural and design traditions flourished for thousands of generations. Their art shaped the continent as we know it today and the societies that thrived here; but these continuing artistic practices and new art forms were disregarded by the settlers, and not considered to be 'fine art' until the late 1980s. In this publication, twenty-five writers urge us to reconsider the art history that is unique to the Australian continent and to acknowledge its rise to prominence in modern times. Featuring new writing by leading thinkers across generations and disciplines, it celebrates Indigenous Australian art across media, time and language groups. Today Indigenous art and artists are at the forefront of contemporary art practice. In very real and tangible ways, this publication reveals the artistic brilliance of Australia's First Peoples and stands as a testament to their resilience.

'My aim with the 53rd Boyer Lectures has been to inject new ideas and new ways of thinking about the status of Indigenous people in Australia and about the impact of the mining boom in the Aboriginal domain. My hope is that my interpretation of the economic impacts of the mining boom and some facts about our economic history are introduced into the national conversation about Aboriginal people, and thereby encourage a more sophisticated view than the archetypal one of the native as perpetual victim with no hope.' When W.E.H. Stanner delivered the Boyer Lectures in 1968, 'After the Dreaming: Black And White Australians - An Anthropologist′s View', he gave credence, perhaps inadvertently, to the widely held assumption at that time that Aboriginal life was incommensurate with modern economic life. today, the expectation is quite the reverse. the emergence of an Aboriginal middle class in Australia in the last two to three decades has gone largely unnoticed. there are hundreds of Aboriginal businesses and Aboriginal not-for-profit corporations with income streams, delivering economic outcomes to communities on an unprecedented scale. the 53rd Boyer Lectures, presented by Professor Marcia Langton AM, is an investigation into the dependency of Aboriginal businesses and not-for-profit corporations on the resources industry, and their resultant vulnerability to economic downturns.

The definitive book that introduces readers from all backgrounds to First Nations histories and cultures.

Tells the dramatic story of the collision of two worlds that created contemporary Australia. Told from the perspective of Australia's first people, it vividly brings to life the events that unfolded when the oldest living culture in the world was overrun by the world's greatest empire.