Whenever I go to foreign countries or other provinces, I usually visit museums to learn about the place’s history and culture. This time, I had one more reason to visit some museums after giving a special lecture in Sydney.
As I took on the “Culture, Art and Humanities” class the graduate school of Dankook University, I named my class “Culture, Art and Humanities of the World” and decided to cover Australia, among several other culturally advanced countries.
I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, and the National Museum of Australia and National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, a round trip which took nearly 10 hours.
Over the last 50 years, I’ve been to a lot of art museums in the West. When I was living in Washington and New York I went to art exhibitions more often. As all of the art museums and history museums were free of charge in Washington D.C. (perhaps because Washington D.C. was the capital of the U.S.), I would often encourage Koreans living in the U.S. to visit museums with their children so that our descendants would grow up to be exceptional artists, not just business people.
You can find works (though not many) by renowned artists like Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Monet, Chagall and Picasso in Australian museums. Also, as Australia is a member of the Commonwealth, there are many works by British painters from the 18th and 19th centuries as well as works by Australian painters. Not only are there walls filled with paintings, but there are also walls that are made of large glass, showing the trees and the sky outside.
What touched me this time were the “Aborigines” (Indigenous Australians), whom I had never heard of before. Their works were completely different from the works that I knew, so I assumed that the two pieces hung in my hotel room would be by Indigenous Australians. Yet this was the first time I learned that they were called “Aborigines.”
The building of the Gallery of NSW in Sydney is great and it holds great works. In there, works by Aborigines took up large spaces. They don’t show remarkable technique, but you can peek into their simple and innocent minds. One was called “Dot Painting” as it was a picture of dots made with a brush. There was also a work made of chopped pieces of wood.
Yet I had a chance to have a real peek into their minds when I watched the three-minute clip shown at the end of the amazingly colorful National Museum in Canberra. I think of Native Americans when I hear “natives.” Yet I’ve never really met them; it has always been through a movie, a video or a book.
I was really surprised to see the faces of Aborigines. They were rough and unfamiliar. Native Americans never felt so unfamiliar to me, even taking into consideration the theory that Native Americans were originally from the East.
“Welcome to this land where we’ve lived for generations.”
Many unsaid things are implied in these simple words.
I look around the museum and find out that about 1,500 prisoners from the U.K. were sent here in the late 18th century and that they did chores like laying bricks with leg cuffs fastened to their ankles. There’s a bench for the audience to try sitting with leg cuffs. There are also sharp swords and guns in display. You can also find landscape paintings of what Australia looked like back then.
British people came to this resourceful, sunny land and made the Aborigines who had lived here for centuries kneel down before them. Those gentle Aborigines had to succumb to big-nosed Westerners invading this peaceful land. I can imagine their lands having been stolen in whole. The same thing happened to the U.S., South America, Africa and South-east Asia. Those innocent people who couldn’t make weapons and were powerless fell victim. You would be able to find unfortunate events in any country’s history. Does the fact that they welcome my stepping onto their land now mean that they welcomed British people as they stomped on their their land around 200 years ago, acting like masters? There must have been a conflict of mind to accept that.
There must have been the lengthy process of restlessness, a change of heart and submission. I’m only looking at the outcome of 200 years, stepping only for a moment onto that land of peace in which the Aborigines have lived with their ancestors. I am deeply impressed, imagining the process of the change of the heart.
They are living together in settlements, and the Australian government pays for their clothes, food and lodging if they fail to get a job. Of course, clothes, food and lodging are not everything to life. I take a deep breath and imagine the process the Aborigines went through to open their hearts, embrace those who invaded, and forgive those numerous cases of murder and plunder.
I wonder whether this is the fate of people who have no power.
I do this as I look toward the Northern Hemisphere from Canberra in the Southern Hemisphere.
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