From Terra Nullius to Beloved Companion
Reimagining Land in Australia

During my research I let myself imagine what I can only describe as ‘the voice of

Land’. It came in many different forms – landscape art, poetry, community input to the policy debate, indigenous spirituality, personal experience, and many government inquiries and repor...

So how might we find hope for the future?

I came across a quote very early on in my research that has stayed with me throughout my academic and experiential journeying.  It is by Vaclav Havel, a former President of Czechoslovakia:

What could change the direction of today...

I’m tempted to take the high moral ground when it comes to issues like the mining of coal seam gas, or whether climate change has its origins in human activity.  The trouble is, ethical arguments emerge on both sides of the polarising debate that inevitably surrounds t...

The Rainbow Spirit in Creation  Jasmine Corowa  2000

When I mention to friends that I am writing about how Australians regard the land, many assume that I draw heavily on indigenous art and spirituality.

I would like this to be the case, but lack the cultural herita...

Advocating the inclusion of the rights of Land into environmental protection legislation is radical, as a central premise on which it rests is that of treating Land in terms of a relationship, rather than as an object that supplies natural resources to be traded in a m...

The Breakaways Photo: Chris Dalton
 

So far I’ve questioned whether we regard Land in Australia in terms of an object or a relationship, how we conceptualise Land, the myth of policy neutrality, values that shape environmental policy, the impact of ‘experiencing’ Land,...

So here I am, standing in the next hall, getting even more confused.  For I’m hearing voices in my head.  One Voice, at least: that of Land.  An artwork in this hall sets me thinking; it’s a painting of the parable of the Good Samaritan, and I can’t help but see Land a...

This hall takes me down memory lane, on a journey into the Red Heart of Australia.  The Spirit Journey I made in 2015.  Not an ordinary journey, but one which gave me unexpected experiences of Land:

• flooding rains in the middle of a hot and arid country

• th...

On entering this hall I’m immediately struck by a huge artwork, describing the naming of Australia in religious terms.  Today we talk about the Great South-land of the Holy Spirit.  Geoff Bullock has even written a song about it.

But on the opposite wall I read wha...

This hall is stark, white, angular, featureless and lacking warmth.  Located on its walls are a few quotes:

The sphere of public and political negotiation flourishes only in the context of larger commitments and visions, and that if this is repressed or forgotten by a s...