Image Danie Mellor, 'Culture warriors', 2007

TLF ID M014298

This is a mixed media artwork by Mamu/Ngagen/Ngajan artist Danie Mellor (b1971), presenting two fighting kangaroos in the foreground of a ‘traditional’ fine bone china scene. The drawing/collage is shown as an enlargeable image. It was exhibited in the 2008 travelling exhibition of the first National Indigenous Art Triennial, ‘Culture warriors’, National Gallery of Australia (NGA). Broad information on Mellor’s practice that can be applied to this work of art, as well as information about the other artists and works of art in the exhibition, can be found on the NGA website by searching for 'culture warriors'. The work measures 171.7cm high x 220.2 cm wide x 5.5 cm deep and is classified as a mixed media drawing on paper.





Educational details

Educational value
  • This is an excellent resource for the Responding strand in the 7-8 and 9-10 year bands in the visual arts curriculum, especially for those content descriptions that refer to responding to the artworks of Australian artists, particularly Aboriginal artists, considering the broader cultural context and significance of their work. The drawing/collage, particularly its background scenes, may also be useful for the history curriculum in years 4 and 9 as an image to support content descriptions about the effects of contact between Aboriginal peoples and non-Indigenous people. The scenes clearly show the displacement of Aboriginal peoples and of the marsupials and birds that formed part of their Countries.
  • The work is of considerable significance for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures cross-curriculum priority. It is particularly relevant to the organising idea that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' ways of life are uniquely expressed through ways of being, knowing, thinking and doing. As suggested by text in the Cultural Warriors website, Mellors placing the kangaroos in a context of a 'traditional' fine bone china scene refers to his rejection of the 18th- and early 19th-century European practices of seeking stories of the exotic and the Other in faraway places and commodifying them. Such practices do not traditionally form part of Aboriginal ways of thinking and doing.
Year level

9; 10

Other details

Contributors
  • Contributor
  • Name: Education Services Australia
  • Organization: Education Services Australia
  • Description: Data manager
  • Address: VIC, AUSTRALIA
  • URL: http://www.esa.edu.au/
  • Person: Danie Mellor
  • Description: Artist
  • Copyright Holder
  • Name: National Gallery of Australia
  • Organization: National Gallery of Australia
  • Address: ACT, AUSTRALIA
  • URL: http://nga.gov.au/
  • Person: Danie Mellor
  • Publisher
  • Name: National Gallery of Australia
  • Organization: National Gallery of Australia
  • Description: Publisher
  • Address: ACT, AUSTRALIA
  • URL: http://nga.gov.au/
  • Resource metadata contributed by
  • Name: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Organisation: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Address: AUSTRALIA
  • URL: www.esa.edu.au
Access profile
  • Unknown
Learning Resource Type
  • Image
Rights
  • Resource: © National Gallery of Australia 2013 (except where otherwise indicated). Image: © Danie Mellor. This material may be used, reproduced, published, communicated and adapted free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes until 30 June 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are retained.