Will the real nomads stand up?

Chips MacKinolty

Just who is a “real Territorian”? and how should they be represented in a Territory that is the domain of Aboriginal people, and Aboriginal artists?

Consider this: over the last 20 years, the Territory’s population has risen by about 100,000 people. An assumption is that a good proportion of this is down to migration of people from interstate, a false idea.

In fact—since figures were collected in 1982—there has been a net loss of population towards interstate migration of around 14 or 15 per cent overall. On average, the NT loses about 500 people a year are permanently leaving to live interstate.

The only accounting for the growth in population is through international migration, natural increase and the growth in the Aboriginal population, which has grown from 22 to 30 per cent of our population since 1981.

They are, if anyone, the “real Territorians” The rest of us are—by and large—the “real nomads”.

The recent re-run of the debate about who is a real Territorian is a false one. The argument is mostly around the circumstances, which allow some nomads to call themselves “Territorians”, and those other nomads are to be dismissed as mere Southerners who should just go home and stop destroying our Territory Way of Life.

This exhibition takes on the problem of the “art of the nomads”, with a handful of developing Territory curators, Suzi Lyon,  Chips MacKinolty,  Sarah Pirrie,  Chris Raja,  Leanne Waterhouse  &  Siying Zhou . They in turn look at the work of J9, Rupert Betheras,  Simon Cooper,  Sia Cox,  Bill Davies,  Trevor Jenkins,  Ian Hance,  Franck Gohier,  Colin Holt,  Suzi Lyon,  Chips MacKinolty,  Rod Moss,  Suzi Lyon,  Henry Smith,  Ben Ward,  Leanne Waterhouse,  Hayley West,  Bronwyn Wright &  Siying Zhou.