Art That Rewrites History
Artist Anu Bandjilam from Australia
In my art I write stories in pictures. Aboriginal pictorial language stories, combing research of ancient symbols and Native Australian culture and fine art. I made accessories for myself and friends using high end fashion construction. I used Native Australian print fabric from the local art supply shop in Haight Ashbury, San Francisco. Then the fabric sold out. So I used my knowledge of growing up with Aboriginal symbols and story telling to make my own original art.
Each artwork combines Native Australian symbols to tell stories of the land, spirituality, journeys and nature in Australia. Language is not just written in words.
In art school I was told “If you can write you can draw.” The same as if you can draw you can write. The images we find on cave walls of pre-history settlements are not jus pictures. They are a form of writing.
As we know from Egyptian hieroglyphs, not all writing or information is in words. Some information is recorded in pictures. The more ancient the writing, the more pictures. The more pictures, the more information one image represents. The picture history system works alongside spoken history as a memory trigger.
We know how European art reminds us of events we learn in history books. Ancient art does the same. An example is if we see an image of Isis from Egypt. We are reminded of the historical Cleopatra. Plus her secret marriages to Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony and the wars they caused. A generation of political history in one image.
Native Australian art records events and even lost races in a beautiful way. In a practical sense it is a modular symbol system alike to Egyptian Hieroglyphs. In a creative sense Aboriginal art is both ancient and modern art at the same time. An ideal inspiration for design.
There are some Australian Aboriginal symbols that are universal all around the world. They have the same concepts and meanings as each other, which scraps current history books. This is because it is one thing to have the same symbol. It is a bunch of other things to have the same symbol with the same meanings and the same multiple concepts. The stories sound different, but origins are the same.
Aboriginal art history proves that there was a global sea faring culture. They also settled in each place long enough for their belief systems and symbols to be adopted by locals. And to adopt their art and art history.