PEDRO WONAEAMIRRI

THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART SHOW Being Tiwi, currently touring various regional centres, has already been to Moree in New South Wales, Tandanya in South Australia, and Mackay in Queensland. The national tour will be visiting other centres in the rest of 2017: Albury and Port Macquarie in New South Wales, and the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery at the University of Western Australia. I wonder how it would be received on the islands themselves? Being Tiwi. A good question. And where does art or art production figure in that self-definition?

There is little point asserting uniqueness unless the content of that uniqueness is specified. And not just what it is but what the implications are. In the case of the Tiwi one manifestation is that they have a degree of political and administrative autonomy: they are a people apart – with the implication that they are less defined by outsiders than driven towards internal differentiation.

In the contemporary scene this is easily seen in the arena of Aussie Rules football.