Nimbin before and after: local voices on how the 1973 Aquarius Festival changed a town forever.
The Conversation, CC BY69.6 MB(download)
The stories shared with you today are drawn from consultations and interviews with more than 60 Nimbin residents, Aquarius Festival participants and Indigenous elders.
A scene at the Aquarius Festival, Nimbin, 1973.
Flickr/Harry Watson Smith
The stories I share with you today are drawn from consultations and interviews with more than 60 Nimbin residents, Aquarius Festival participants and Indigenous elders.
We have so much more to learn about Australia.
Shutterstock/Lev Savitskiy
It has often been assumed that Australia was essentially isolated until 1788. But research into the seagoing trade on the south coast of Papua New Guinea suggests otherwise.
Nicholas Chevalier, Mallee scrub, Murray River, NSW, watercolour, 1871.
National Library of Australia
Captain Cook's 1770 voyage is well known. But at this time, Indigenous Australians also travelled great distances - let's recognise this in the 2020 commemorations.
Isabel Letham was one of the first Australians to ride the waves. After moving to the US in 1918, she became an epitome of the modern woman: economically independent, physically daring and unapologetically ambitious.
An undated portrait thought to depict Bennelong, signed “W.W.” now in the Dixson Galleries of the State Library of New South Wales.
Wikimedia Commons
History has typically depicted Bennelong as a tragic figure lost between two worlds - but sailors' journals suggest he still held authority after his return from the UK.
It may be that the fortnight or so surrounding Australia Day is evolving into an annual season in which some of the deepest paradoxes of Australian identity play out in public.
AAP/Glenn Campbell
As the debate around celebrating Australia Day on January 26 continues, new research shows Australians have mixed views of it as a national day.
The Morrison government has committed $50million to celebrate next year’s 250th anniversary of Cook’s landing at Kurnell on April 29, 1770.
AAP/Marc McCormack
The government's investment in a celebration of 250 years since James Cook's voyage to and along Australia, if not done properly, will further inflame the history wars in Australia.
Old mine sites suffer many fates, which range from simply being abandoned to being incorporated into towns or turned into an open-air museum in the case of Gwalia, Western Australia.
The industrial patterns of mining shaped many Australian towns, which found varied uses for disused mine sites. The mining boom ensures the challenges these sites present will be with us a long time.
The excavations at the Normanton site in 2015.
Shaun Adams
When the remains of Aboriginal people who died more than a century ago were found, the local Aboriginal community wanted to know more about these past lives.
“New Hollanders” depicted in a 1698 edition of the explorer William Dampier’s journal.
Courtesy of the Pacific Collection, Hamilton Library, University of Hawai'i-Mānoa
Today, many Australian urbanites see rivers as little more than picturesque places for a paddle. But in the colonial era, rivers served as highways, drinking sources, sewers, and routes to discovery.
S.T. Gill, Kangaroo Hunting, The Death, from his Australian Sketchbook (1865). Colonial hunting clubs were established across Australia in the 1830s and 1840s.
National Library of Australia
In the mid 19th century, kangaroo hunting was a sport. Colonial hunting clubs were established across Australia and everyone from Charles Darwin to Anthony Trollope tried their hand at shooting roos.
A view of Sydney Cove, New South Wale, 1804.
State Library of Victoria
Australia still hasn't answered how Aboriginal people became protected by British law and lost all their land at the same time. If it can't be resolved here, it might be time for international courts to weigh in.
Detail from Julie Shiels’ 1954 poster White on black: The annihilation of Aboriginal people and their culture cannot be separated from the destruction of nature.
State Library of Victoria
It is 50 years since anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner gave the Boyer Lectures in which he coined the phrase 'the great Australian silence'. How far have we come since?
A new Parramatta is emerging out of the rubble of history.
Artist's impression of the new North Parramatta development/URBANGROWTH NSW/AAP
Sydney's Parramatta is developing fast, building over a rich archaeological history. Finding ways to retain it can help visitors and residents feel a sense of physical connection with those who came before.
Ivy Emms with the man she married, Jack Bent, on a music catalogue for the song Just a Ray of Sunlight. After performing patriotic songs as a child in popular pantomimes, Emms later worked as a choreographer at Melbourne’s Tivoli Theatre.
NLA
More than 100,000 records of live performance are on a database of our theatre history. They tell of corroborees, the first play staged by white settlers, and long-gone gracious theatres.
Professor of Indigenous Studies at Monash University, and Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Monash University
