Talkback Classroom, 2007: Yirrkala bark petition

In this clip Franchesca Cubillo (senior curator at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory) talks to secondary students about the significance of Aboriginal artwork and the Yirrkala bark petition of 1963. She says that when a bauxite mine was proposed on the Gove Pensinsula, the Yolngu people at Yirrkala had no legal land rights. The Elders of the community produced what became known as the 'bark petition' - a petition embedded in a painting on bark that expressed the people's title deeds to their country. Cubillo says the claim was not presented in a legal document as a non-Aboriginal claim might have been, but on the Yirrkala people's own terms. She says that Aboriginal art has always been connected to ceremony and land, and so an Aboriginal person painting in traditional style is asserting their native title rights.