Welcome to Artpeak`s Library where the focus is on ART and ISSUES
- Essay: A DYING WISH BASED ON AN ANCIENT CULTURE SABOTAGED BY CONTEMPORARY HISTORY
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Note! Many news articles relating to this essay are no longer available except in media archives. A few news articles, however, can still be found by typing Milanka Sullivan or Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri in your web search.
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For people who followed the Court Case to prevent the sabotage of Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri`s will : know that the judge did not rule against Clifford Possum's right to be buried at Larumba (Napperby), as was reported by some news papers, for the judge did not even hear the evidence showing the artist`s affiliation to this area, because the case ended up on being focused on who had the last word in relation to `the body`. Under Australian Law it turned out to be the executor of Clifford Possum's will, as `a body` is not considered property, so the judge's hands were tied and so he was forced to leave the final decision up to the artist`s executor: a public trustee, who too readily put his trust in the people, who attacked the artist`s burial wishes for their own interests. Wishes that were based on REAL Aboriginal Anmatyarre Law and knowledge, which the artist lived by. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri was an Australian citizen, who played a major role in giving Aboriginal artists across this Nation a means of making an income and gaining self worth and reconnecting to their culture where culture was lost. At the time of the artist`s death in 2002 the Aboriginal Art industry was generating an enormous amount of money for Australia, yet this hard working creative tribesman was denied his right to be buried next to his wife and son and near his mother in country that he called home, as he had requested in his will.
This above paragraph and the accompanying essay have been included here to ensure that this terrible event in the history of Clifford Possum is not lost, or further white-washed, so that this artist might one day be taken home. Anything less is simply amoral and a blight on the dignity of our Nation.
- Paper: Policing Fakes By Paul Baker
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