UQ will celebrate 2007 as a year of special University focus on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues to mark the 40th anniversary of the referendum of May 27, 1967.
Vice-Chancellor Professor John Hay, AC, said in 1967 more than 90 per cent of Australian voters approved the altering of the constitution relating to Indigenous Australians.
“This provided for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to be included in the Australian census for the first time,” he said.
“It also enabled the Federal Government to enact laws to benefit Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
“One of the reasons the University is adopting a special focus is that that despite the referendum outcome, Australia has a long way to go before Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are living on an equitable basis with non-Indigenous Australians.
“As an institution with a significant intellectual and moral leadership role within the wider community, it is appropriate that the University uses 2007 to highlight issues related to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples both in its own core business, and more broadly.”
To promote the significance of this event in Australia’s history, UQ will hold a series of events and activities this year supported by the Vice-Chancellor. The focus will extend the University’s Diversity Week theme, “We All Count” for use through the year.
Professor Hay said a Steering Group had been formed to develop a program of events focusing on Indigenous Australian issues.
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic)Professor Michael Keniger will chair the group and activities will be announced in the near future.
One of the activities will be Our way, contemporary Aboriginal art from Lockhart River, the first exhibition to survey the group of young artists known as the Lockhart River Art Gang. This will open at the University Art Museum, James and Mary Emelia Mayne Centre, St Lucia on May 5.
The exhibition will see both levels of the James and Mary Emelia Mayne Centre filled with over 100 works depicting Cape York’s “Sandbeach Country”. It includes the work of artists such as Rosella Namok, Samantha Hobson and Fiona Omeenyo. A book on the history of the Lockhart River Art Gang will accompany the exhibition, written by the curator Dr Sally Butler, a UQ lecturer in art history.
This exhibition is supported by the Queensland Government, Australia, through Arts Queensland, Department of Education, Training and the Arts and the Queensland Indigenous Arts Marketing and Export Agency (QIAMEA), Department of the Premier and Cabinet.
Media: Further information, Jan King 0413 601 248.
