The Aboriginal Art Directory is delighted to introduce the first feature article by independent arts consultant Tim Acker. In this edition, Tim writes about the wider and more complex conversation between artists and consumers in affecting Aboriginal livelihoods in remote Australia. He also talks about the important role of Aboriginal art as a mediator between remote/black and urban/white society in contemporary Australia. Based in Western Australia, Tim is an independent arts consultant working with Aboriginal artists and their art centres to build better livelihoods from their arts practice and their enterprises. Tim has worked with art centres and artists throughout Western Australia, the Northern Territory and South Australia since 1999 in a range of roles, from managing an art centre to industry development to project work on initiatives such as The Canning Stock Route Project.
Understanding, enjoying and appreciating any art is an intensely personal experience. Each of us brings our own set of experiences, values and tastes – as individual as our own personalities. But among the aesthetic and artistic assessments we make when viewing Aboriginal art is surely a fascination with the cultural differences that the art embodies. “People buy Aboriginal art for various reasons. For most, there’s a cultural interest, not just a beautiful object, but a beautiful object with a strong cultural dimension”, says Martin Wardrop, Director of Aboriginal Art Online, Australia’s leading online gallery and President of Art.trade, a representative body for Aboriginal art galleries.
Read THE PLACE OF ART: Livelihoods in Remote Communities at the Aboriginal Art Directory.
