Exhibition Catalogue
2016 - 2021
O Tempo Dos Sonhos - Out of the Dreaming
Australian Aboriginal Art Exhibition South America
The Australian Indigenous art exhibition O Tempo Dos Sonhos - Out of the Dreaming visited 9 host venues in Brazil, Mexico, and Uruguay (2016-2021) since it was first mounted for DFAT's Australia Now Festival in Sao Paolo. More than 500,000 people visited the exhibition, and Media coverage was extensive.
The Exhibition was organised and administered in Australia by Adrian Newstead OAM, who worked closely with the Exhibition Curator - Djon Mundine OAM (formerly the Indigenous art curator of the QAG, AGNSW and Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art) and the South American Art Consultant - Clay D'Paula.
Originally curated for the Department of Foreign Affairs 'Australia Now Festival' in Sao Paolo in the lead up to the Rio Olympic Games, the exhibition subsequently toured to Rio De Janeiro, Forteleza, Curatiba, NBello Horezonte, Recife, Salvadore and Brazillia. Between 2016 and 2018. Key sponsors were Caixa Bank, Fiat and the Council for Australian Latin American Relations (COALAR) with in-kind support provided by several additional Australian and Brazilian companies involved in trade and education. Symposia were attended by arts professionals, academics and collectors, along with workshops for young people.
Documentation
The beautifully documented exhibition drew on the curators' collective experience. Mundine organised the landmark exhibition Tyerabarrbowaryaou - I shall never become a White Man, for the Havana Biennale, and The Native Born at the Pinocoteca do Estado de Sao Paolo in 2002). Newstead and D'Paula presented the Aboriginal exhibition Heroic Narrative including artworks featured at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 2010 at venues in Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro in 2012.
Artworks
The 73 Aboriginal and TSI works included in O Tempo Dos Sonhos spanned a period of 60 years. Works by more than 30 living and practicing artists were shown alongside those of the highest quality by many of the seminal leaders of Australia's various regional Indigenous art movements (such as Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Rover Thomas, and Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri. The exhibition revealed and compared the separate but parallel colonial histories and experience of Indigenous cultures and communities in Australia and South America.
Workshops and Symposia
Workshops and symposia have brought together South American and Australian artists, arts administrators and curators. Presenters included Ilana Goldstein (Brazilian Anthropologist and specialist in Australian Aboriginal art), Juliana Podolan Martins (Brazilian specialist in Indigenous Art), Carolina Lock (respected Brazilian Art Curator), Gustavo Malucelli (Latin American Indigenous artist), Djon Mundine (Aboriginal Art Curator from Australia), Clay D’Paula (Art Curator and Cultural Producer), Willurai Kirkbright (Australian Aboriginal artist) and Ricardo Resende (renowned South American Contemporary Art Curator), while Adrian Newstead conducted soirees and book events in several of the cities. Thousands of school children visited the exhibition and participated in the education workshop facilities provided by the galleries.
