Teaching Indigenous perspectives in VCE Art and Studio Arts 

65,000BC - 1770 Aboriginal people are the inhabitants of this land. Cultural events celebrate the Dreaming and communicate stories through oral accounts, visual symbols, dance and music. The stories tell of beginnings, survival and relationships. 

1770 Captain James Cook raises the British flag on Possession Island and claims Australia for the British Government. The British assume the land is terra nullius. All Indigenous rights are extinguished and no British citizenship rights were granted.

1788 The British First Fleet landed at Sydney Cove on January 26th, with 9 more ships arriving over 3 days. Issues involving con- flict and resistance between Aborigines and Europeans start almost immediately.  Pemulwuy, a Bidgegal warrior, conducts a guerilla war from 1788 until 1802 and leads the attack on the British settlement at Toongabbi.

1789 Smallpox decimated the Koori population of Port Jackson, Botany Bay and Broken Bay

1816 Governor Macquarie gives selected Indigenous Australians ‘passes’ and the protection of British Law. This ‘pass’ is a metal breastplate. Other Indigenous Australians may be shot on sight if they are found carrying spears near the houses of the new invaders/colonists.

1822 Governor Macquarie gives Bungaree from Broken Bay near Sydney a life pension and protection for his contribution to Matthew Flinders’ two explorations around Australia.

1830-1880 European pastoral expansion and the forceful dispossession and decimation of Indigenous communities.

1835 Indigenous Australians in Tasmania are forced to settle on Flinders Island.

1838 Myall Creek massacre. The settlers who shoot and kill 28 Kamilaroi people are the first group to be punished under Australian law.

1848 NSW Native Police troopers are brought to QLD to kill Aborigines and open the land up for white settlement. 

1869 In Victoria, the Board for the Protection of Aborigines is established with the power to remove children from their families. Other states follow: South Australia in 1880, NSW in 1883, Western Australia in 1886, Queensland in 1897,

1901 Indigenous people are excluded from the Constitution, Census and laws. 

1909 NSW Aborigines Protection Act increases the power of the State police and government appointees, allowing them to place Indigenous people in reserves under their protection. Other states follow.

1929 Primitive Art Exhibition, Victoria

1930's Social Realist artists Yosl Bergner and Noel Counihan depict Indigenous people under the impact of racism and European colonial expansion.

1931 Arnhem Land Aboriginal Reserve declared.

1937 Aboriginal Progressive Association formed in NSW to promote the abolition of the policy of the removal of Aboriginal children from their families.  First Commonwealth–State Conference on ‘native welfare’ adopts assimilation as the national policy.

1937-38 Albert Namatjira has sell-out exhibitions in Adelaide and Melbourne.

(Despite public outcry he was jailed in 1959 for selling alcohol to his cousin and died the same year.)

1938 The first Australian Aboriginal Conference, A Day of Mourning, is held in Sydney to support and promote a ten-point plan for ‘justice, decency and fair play’.

1940's-50's Aboriginal art from Central Australia and Arnhem Land collected by missionaries and ethnographers are displayed in museums as ethnographic objects, not works of art.

1941 Art of Australia (1788–1941) exhibition tours the USA and includes a large selection of Indigenous art.

1960 Aboriginal Art exhibition, Art Gallery of NSW

1961 Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies is formed in Canberra

1962 Aboriginal people in Queensland, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory are given the right to vote in Federal Elections

1965 Freedom Rides by Charles Perkins and Sydney University students draw attention to discrimination and segregation in towns in north-western NSW.  The ALP deletes “White Australia” from its immigration policy (Integration Policy replaces “Assimilation Policy as governments position regarding Indigenous People

1966 The Gurindji Walk-Off starts a seven year campaign for Aboriginal Land rights in the Northern Territory. Stock workers were the first to walk off protesting intolerable working conditions and wages, but refused to accept any outcome other than the return of their land

1967 White Australians vote in a May 27 referendum on whether Aboriginal people should be included in the census and wether the Federal Government should make laws overriding current state jurisdiction over “Aboriginal Affairs”. The vote was a 90% YES , ending constitutional discrimination. All states except QLD abandon laws and policies discriminating against Aboriginal people.

1968 W E H Stanner in his Boyer lectures refers to the exclusion of Aboriginal history from the national consciousness as the great Australian silence.

1971-72 Geoff Bardon encourages Papunya community members to use a Western medium (acrylic paint and canvas) to paint their Dreaming stories. This action initiates an Indigenous art movement and a cultural revival in Central Australia and beyond.

1972 The Tent Embassy was set up outside Parliament House in Canberra, demonstrating for land rights and social justice 

1975 Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act..