Our visit to CIAF

Last Friday we went to CIAF, which stands for Cairns Indigenous Art Fair. This very interesting event is usually organized every July. We saw different kinds of indigenous art, exhibitions, dance performances and we could interview the artists.

One of the most interesting installations was art from Miart [Mornington Island Art]. We could see vivid paintings and coloured dresses. This art style was a kind of beautiful abstract art for us, but after the talk with the curator of the installation, we got confused. The reason for our confusion was because the art is realistic and a natural presentation of the origin of an indigenous family. We couldn’t understand this message because we are from Europe and our ancestors and roots are totally different.

Burrkunda (Def.Cicatrice, scar). The pictures are painted in oil on canvas and you can see coloured vertical lines.

Our “European” eyes could only see abstract art, but we could also see a connection between the pictures though colour, shape and style. The collection of the pictures represents a family. The art form is not in only one picture but we must consider all the pictures together which can’t be split up as it would break the artwork.

After having done some research on “aboriginal scarification” (Burrkunda), we have found the picture presented on the left. Looking at the picture, we think we can understand what the artist means when he speaks about the scars. A scar could be a symbol of lost family members (deceased or detached from the family) or it can even represent the loss of family values.

Alena and Andrea, Upper-Intermediate B

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

About CCEB

We are teachers and students at the Cairns College of English and Business (CCEB). How lucky are we to work and study in the Australian Wet Tropics with the world's oldest rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef at our doorstep! We would like to share our happy posts with the world! Welcome to the CCEB space eveyone.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *