06/06/2020
On Wednesday 3rd June, Australia celebrated Mabo Day, which commemorates Mer Island man Eddie Mabo and his successful efforts to overturn the legal fiction of terra nullius, or ‘land belonging to no one’.
Following the Mabo decision, Australia’s Federal Parliament passed the Native Title Act 1993 which established a legal framework for native title claims throughout Australia by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This decision opened the door to recognition and protection of the traditional rights and interests of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their heritage.
The National Capital Authority in Canberra has used the Commonwealth Heritage Listed National Carillon in Canberra as a stunning electric canvas to project a fabulous series of narratives and imagery for National Reconciliation Week 2020. The projections wrapped up on Wednesday evening with the artist Gordon Bennett’s portrait of Eddie Mabo. In making his portrait of Mabo, he used a newspaper image and headlines from newspaper articles about the Native Title furore and combined them with an image by the American artist Mike Kelley. ‘To me the image of Eddie Mabo stood like the eye of a storm,’ Bennett said, ‘calmly asserting his rights while all around him the storm, a war of words and rhetoric, raged.’
Watch the full video here: https://youtu.be/qypIHVLjHg8
Artist: Gordon Bennett with permission from NPG and The Estate of Gordon Bennett and Gail Mabo
Video Credit: Drone footage by the National Capital Authority .gov
On 3 June 1992 the High Court of Australia delivered its landmark Mabo decision, which legally recognised that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples ...
