Art in Pedagogy

Australia’s Indigenous people have always been conscious of their being or belongingness to country, despite invasion, through traditional and contemporary connectedness of lore and law. The understanding of this philosophy within the context of Dreaming is a continual state of being. Our Dreaming has in turn provided the tenets of our values, beliefs, and mores and cultural protocols of relationships to each other and their environment. The continual recording of these cultural protocols determines kinship structures, social, religious, and spiritual relationships, practices, and accompanying personal and group responsibilities. This can be evidenced in art and educational practices in such examples as ceremony of stories, song lines, and traditional trade routes. Protocols of governance, based on lore and law of people and their country. shape the attitudes and behaviours of the members of respective First Nation’s societies. Accordingly, an element of family, cultural obligations, within community is formulated through kinship and responsibilities of elders, warriors, men, women, and children in First Nation’s collective nurturing, and this enables each individual to realise their social, physical, intellectual, and spiritual self. Therefore respect for individuals, and the collective nation, is still maintained and promoted on country within each First Nation within present-day Indigenous society. A sharing of this cultural experience with Australian society occurs through art and education practice.