Safina Stewart is a Melbourne-based multicultural artist, educator and storyteller. Reasonably than separate attributes, these are all a part of the identical factor for Safina—unattainable to separate one from the opposite.
Safina’s skilled inventive journey started in 2007, when a religious expertise impressed her to depart a instructing job with a purpose to develop into a full-time artist. However as an Aboriginal girl and Torres Strait Islander, her work are a part of a practice that dates again a lot additional, tens of hundreds of years by some estimates. She weaves tales of life, creation and unity by the symbols of her heritage.
As a result of 99designs is a world neighborhood that celebrates the numerous cultural views design can categorical, we commissioned Safina to create art work for the Melbourne workplace to honor town’s Indigenous roots. And in gentle of the Nationwide Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee (NAIDOC) week this July, we invited her to share her story and cultural insights with our readers. We spoke with Safina about what every bit represents, her personal inventive and Indigenous historical past, and an important messages her artwork embodies.
A quick introduction to Aboriginal artwork
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The earliest items of Aboriginal artwork in Australia have been estimated thus far again 60,000 years, making them a few of the oldest extant inventive works on this planet. These Aboriginal artists painted on stone, wooden and their very own our bodies till the Seventies when canvas and conventional paints have been used, birthing the modern Aboriginal artwork motion.
Aboriginal art work is vibrant with shade, symbolism and storytelling. Within the absence of a written language, tales are communicated by expressive artwork, generally drawn within the sand earlier than the ft of the storyteller. Though the symbols and tales will range by tribe, the widespread topic issues what is known as The Dreaming, referring to the creation of the world and the ancestral heroes who lived within the early Dreamtime.
As a result of every Dreaming is exclusive and belongs to one of many many tribes, an artist wants permission to color their interpretation of a Dreaming. And since these work comprise such very important ancestral data, dots grew to become standard as a means of concealing their that means from White colonizers.
Safina Stewart’s artwork
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As for Safina Stewart—who traces her Aboriginal heritage by Wuthathi Nation in Far North Queensland, her Torres Strait Islander heritage by Mabuiag Island, and her non-Indigenous heritage by Scotland—her art work is a way of bridging cultural gaps. It is usually a means of reminding the fashionable world of lengthy held ancestral truths that, whereas forgotten by some, are extra related now than ever.
Talking in regards to the work she made for 99designs, she says, “After I thought in regards to the items, my coronary heart actually needed to place ‘caring for nation’ on the forefront of everyone’s thoughts. Caring for creation must be upheld, not simply as a pleasant interest, however really as a transformative motion for change, justice, and future hope.
“Realizing that a lot of you might be creatives as properly, and that … you may join with so many alternative individuals globally, I knew that this message of taking care of nation—or in Aboriginal converse we are saying ‘caring for nation’—is that this deep remembering that we, as individuals, have been given the exceptional privilege and duty to take care of the remainder of creation.
“And meaning the rocks, the mountains, the birds, animals, communities, the rivers, the sky, the environment and all ecosystems. It additionally means the issues we are able to’t see. We’re chargeable for the flourishing life or the dying of the remainder of creation. However we’ve got forgotten our function. Our function was not made up by us.”
We talked to Safina about this concept and about what drives her as an Indigenous artist and a person.
Interview with Safina Stewart
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How did you come to be an artist?
I used to be 6 years outdated once I first had the aware thought that I used to be a inventive. I used to be doing this portray in school, and it gained the principal sticker award… And it’s like, it twigged, ”Oh, I’m good at one thing right here!”
But it surely wasn’t simply that different individuals seen that I had a present. I acknowledged that I skilled pleasure once I was making this art work. It was this expertise that got here from deep, inside my very being. This effervescent over of happiness and I couldn’t assist however to pay attention, to focus, and to deliver steadiness to the composition.
Have been there any challenges or pivotal moments that formed you as an artist?
I used to be at all times making issues as a child—out of something I may get my palms on—and we weren’t properly off. We couldn’t afford birthday presents and Christmas presents, so we might make issues—our complete household. We’d present love by making compared to exhibiting love by buying.
There have been good experiences of discovering my peace, solitude and my grounding as a toddler within the making of issues. However that was additionally the realm the place I used to be most attacked once I was going by faculty, the place I felt most damaged down by both artwork lecturers or by vital phrases from different college students. And so it was turmoil at instances. It was the deep water that I needed to be in, however plenty of tossing currents.
There was identification in it. There was an expression of tradition. There have been tales all inside it. And but it was additionally a really dangerous place to be in. So once I have a look at that I believe it fashioned me and made me perceive that what I had was valuable and worthwhile and wanted defending and safeguarding.
Have you ever at all times painted [created art] as a occupation?
My Bachelor’s Diploma is in training. I used to be instructing for a couple of years, full-time. I had already been portray in my very restricted spare time, which was once I felt my guts, my spirit and my soul merging collectively and knew that I wanted to color….
After which I had a bit that Yr 12 college students in my faculty took as inspiration for a drama piece, they usually turned it into this magnificent drama in regards to the stolen generations and confronting a few of the injustices Aboriginal individuals confronted. And so they had used a bit of my artwork, which had nothing to do with stolen generations, however it had blood. It was known as “The Intercessory Prayer.”
And it was there sitting at that efficiency with elders subsequent to me that I invited, that—I didn’t hear an audible voice from God, however it was fairly near a really clear message. That was not from me, that I knew was from the upper energy who I belief and hearken to… And that audible voice stated, “Okay, we’re completed. Time for the following factor to observe.” And I’m like, “However the place?” and the audible voice stated, “I’m instructing you the place to stroll along with your artwork.”
So I resigned instantly and three weeks later I’d completed. And nobody leaves a full-time everlasting place that you simply’re picked for, being crafted and grafted into roles. Nobody does that. However I did as a result of I needed to observe that invitation. And that was in 2007.
Have there been any cases the place you’ve seen your artwork and training intersect?
I didn’t go away instructing, however I left my employment with one group and I expanded into my artwork. And thru my artwork enterprise, I’ve now labored with hundreds of faculties and organizations.
…In order an artist, I see my art work now as a segue in bringing dialog, relationship and inquiries to very influential areas—to varsities which are educating our subsequent technology. So my work is definitely training, however I are available with the artwork as a result of it’s stunning and multilayered with messaging. And being Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, I’m ready to usher in tales from many alternative views. And naturally, in class environments, they’re meant to be doing Indigenous research all the best way all through, however sadly, the federal government hasn’t skilled the lecturers to understand how to try this. So many lecturers are feeling actually unconfident.
And so being an artist is a mushy means of introducing myself to educators in a non-threatening means. I simply begin by telling tales of our Aboriginal individuals and the present panorama of Australia, in addition to wanting on the previous, which could be very uncomfortable. However you may deliver it up with out hurting or offending individuals since you’re pointing to a portray. You’re not pointing at them. You’re saying, “Let’s have a look at this. How can we come collectively to take care of our nation? Or take care of the marginalized who haven’t any house?”
So being an artist means quite a bit to me… It’s a pathway for me to come back in and for individuals to obtain me into their areas the place I’d usually say Aboriginal persons are blocked out of, or it’s very onerous for us to entry. Colleges are a kind of areas.
You need to be an elite pristine, clear particular person, clear to enter into a college surroundings as a result of, a part of the historical past of Australia is that colleges are literally arrange not for the White individuals… The primary colleges ever arrange in Victoria have been with the Black college students. And so the purpose of these colleges throughout the 1800s was to tear out our tradition.
…So artwork could be very important. I do know it’s trivial to many, and I hold my artwork as stunning, very intentionally as a result of I need to have the ability to get in and have that dialog with individuals and for them to really feel protected with me, for me to really feel protected with them. However the entire time I’m in I’m gauging and assessing the place they’re at in order that I can put in a single grenade—a goodness of fact—to not explode them, however I believe discomfort helps us to develop. Throw in that little little bit of discomfort, however not a lot that it might offend after which I wouldn’t be invited again in once more.
What can individuals find out about Indigenous tradition by artwork?
We [Aboriginal people] have a house right here, and we’re comfortable to have individuals come right here after they are available the appropriate means as company to our nation who’re respectful to our priorities of taking care of the land, youngsters, sharing and caring for each other….
So then rapidly you’re speaking about refugees, asylum seekers, migration, integrating individuals into neighborhood, welcoming individuals, belonging, adoption and many others. And that’s our function as Aboriginal individuals: it’s to take care of others. It’s to be sure that everybody’s sorted if the land is sorted. ‘Taking care of’ will not be human-centric. It’s all of creation coming into a very good concord and synergy collectively. It’s steadiness. Identical to a portray must be balanced.
Are you able to inform us extra about what you imply by ‘caring for nation’?
We’ve been given the function to care by one thing larger than us. And so for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals, we converse of our ancestors who’ve handed from the bodily physique and into their spirit. And we converse of the creator.
We inform extremely inspiring tales of our creators that are echoed all through the world by Indigenous peoples globally. All of us have these identical echoes of this sacred spirit. There’s totally different names, however this nice spirit creates fellow creators (artists) after which provides roles to individuals to take care of what they’ve created.
So we are saying “fellow creation” as a result of we’re sort of household: we’re brothers and sisters to the wombat, the echidna, the river, and the mountain—as a result of we come from the identical creator. We didn’t make them. We didn’t make spirit. We got a task to take care of its unbelievable creations. It’s a privilege and it’s like, we’ve forgotten it. And so in our methods of residing, our methods of energy and our methods of consumption, we’ve believed a lie that the human is an important and has rights to all the things. And it’s gotten us into an enormous, sophisticated, very dangerous scenario known as a local weather disaster as a result of we forgot what we have been purported to take care of.
We even have forgotten that nation speaks and creation speaks. If I’ve a pet and I deal with that pet improper, he’ll cry, howl and even chew me with a purpose to shield himself when he feels out of steadiness. And I take into consideration our local weather, our local weather is screaming. She, if I can provide a gender, has been saying for a very long time, “I don’t really feel good. This isn’t going so good. I’m out of whack.” Now we’re to date past her preliminary, light warning indicators, we at the moment are with a screaming local weather.
And we as people, ignore her, considering that we’re nonetheless the middle of the universe, and say mom nature has betrayed us. And once more, we solid blame onto what ought to really be the sufferer, similar to a perpetrator would blame the sufferer for making them do it—fully out of steadiness.
The 99designs Indigenous artwork challenge
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For NAIDOC week, 99designs commissioned Safina Stewart to create 5 work. Every one encapsulates a selected facet of what Safina describes as ‘caring for nation.’ As she places it:
“By these work I needed to create one thing stunning that will encourage individuals to think about, ‘How will I like creation? How will I like nation?’ I say ‘nation’ as within the land, the animals, the programs like water, air, hearth and communities. As a result of we, as individuals, are additionally nation.”
As an entire, the work are about coming collectively to handle the local weather disaster and take care of nation. “These work are a reminder that we serve creation and it’s not the opposite means round,” Safina says. “And we’ve got to do it collectively; to go in opposition to this falsity of individualism and we’ve got to foster neighborhood. Which means we’ve received to place our egos apart and we really should construct up households to construct up neighborhood. So I’m calling us again to the traditional methods by these work and each has a unique focus or factor.”
Safina went on to present us perception into the that means behind every particular person portray.
“The Rock and the Earth”
“It seems like sedimentary rock with topographic motion and forces occurring and the land is being sculpted from inside. …The land could be very, very important to Aboriginal individuals. It’s not an object, it’s a part of us. These necessary moments of conception, delivery and dying are marked geographically. …Our place is honored by the land the place our our bodies are gifted again. And we then nourish different issues to then develop, which then feeds the following technology. We return to the land. So when individuals compromise that identification and that sacredness of the land—in impact, they’re scandalizing the graves of our family members.
“…And but all of creation falls to the bottom and turns into a part of the land …The land is alive and has a voice for these creations. You possibly can hear and it reminds us of many stunning, good truths. …Even when it’s onerous, beneath stress, actually darkish and extremely painful—all of these pressures that compress—it provides me consolation. [The land] will remind me that even the remainder of creation itself is aware of what ache or struggling is, however chooses to show it into life.”
“The Leaves and Smoke”
“All through Australia, burning the eucalyptus leaf has been about needing to wash off wrongdoings and evil. It’s about making issues proper, coming into alignment and receiving therapeutic. …We use the oils from the gum leaf medicinally, as handed down from our ancestors. We’re helped by this oil to breathe… Once you burn the eucalyptus leaf, the smoke prompts the cells within the physique to present speedy therapeutic.
“In a smoking ceremony, the place a welcome is given, persons are requested to go by the smoke which is a veil of a spirit. And you’ll’t see with the human eye, which is strictly what we do as artists. We give illustration to issues which are unseen, unnoticed, that we’re making an attempt to deliver to individuals’s consideration. And on the opposite facet of the smoke is an settlement that you simply go out of your methods and go by, into cooperation with the normal homeowners—that you’ll dwell by their legislation, respect and take care of the nation that they’re chargeable for.
“Once you go by, you might be given the blessing to make use of the sources of their land to maintain your life…however there are circumstances that you’ll observe the legal guidelines of the creator which have been handed down to those individuals. You’ll know your home as a visitor and that you’re not the host. You should honor the individuals who have welcomed you and given you protected passage…
“So the smoke is about welcome. It’s about cleaning. It’s about therapeutic. And it’s additionally about coming into proper alignment. All of us have to acknowledge that we’re company right here and that it’s a privilege to be right here. It connects with the elders. It opens up your eyes to your coronary heart, to one thing that’s new and presumably past your comprehension however open in order that the reward could be obtained. And I’ve met so many individuals which have been transformed into loving Aboriginal individuals who have simply been by a smoking ceremony. Their mind doesn’t get it, however one thing simply occurred. And I’m going ‘Inform me what it appears like?’ And so they go, ‘It appears like love.’”
“The Ocean and the Stars”
“‘The Ocean and The Stars’ are reflective of each my Torres Strait Islander heritage and the coastal city the place I dwell. There’s an entire world beneath that’s mysterious. It reminds us that the mysteries of our being are unseen and but are stunning, actual and true. And the tides remind us of simplicity and that chaos will go. For me as a lady, it might be my soul area. The tides and the moon cooperate and our our bodies speak to the moon on a regular basis. When the moon says ‘It’s time,’ my physique does what it’s meant to do, you already know—one way or the other that connects to productiveness and fertility of my girl physique. And now I’ve infants. Just like the moon has helped me have.
“And the celebrities, that incredible sky with so many tales that Aboriginal individuals maintain. It’s a exceptional encyclopedia. It’s larger than Google. We learn the seasons by the sky, what must bud and what’s about to burst for the remainder of creation…
“We’ve misplaced a few of our literacy, however the tales which are inside these stars which have been handed on from technology to technology to assist us maintain our life. Properly, right here on this globe and for Torres Strait Islander individuals, we navigate the ocean by watching the celebrities. …If you already know the navigation system, you could be protected on the water, despite the fact that individuals assume that going to the water these days is harmful. No, it’s solely harmful trigger we haven’t received the data, but when we retain and reestablish that data, it’s a fantastic relationship and a security web.”
“The Rivers and Waterways”
“…The river is white as a result of it’s clear and wholesome. However I see so many rivers which are sick when they’re such an necessary life supply for all of us. We want contemporary water, and a lot abundance comes from the rivers and the waterways.
“[The painting is] from a topographic perspective as a result of it reveals that there’s the valley and mountain the place water comes down into the river. The river then cleans all of that water with fish, tadpoles and bugs all flowing by that bowl, doing what they do to dwell in life… one way or the other intersecting with the rocks, moss, algae and reeds, but that water is supposed to be clear, wholesome, nourishing in order that when, once we get to drink it, it actually turns into a part of us and retains our blood fairly actually pumping. …The rivers, just like the veins of the physique of the earth, the waterways, it’s just like the clear blood that brings life and oxygen to this stunning panorama.”
“Neighborhood”
“That is the climax, the place we as individuals should ask ourselves, ‘So what lets do? How then lets dwell? We’ve integrity, goal, hope, path, perception and knowledge—what then lets do?’ And my suggestion is that we come along with the pressure of what collaboration could be, what listening and studying could be, with our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, our elders, traditions, and our wisdoms that we stock… That our impression not be based mostly on individualism, however neighborhood. And that we sit in these neighborhood circles.
“That circle is just like the campfire, the ‘U’ prints are once we sit down, cross-legged. It’s an aerial, topographic view of the imprints that our presence makes on the land. So let’s make our imprint good.
“And the colours are easy as a result of perhaps the story is definitely actually easy. …As artists, our function is to assist individuals to see properly, to ask them in by our artwork. And I’d sit with you in my campfire and yarn about these large deep issues collectively and ask, ‘How can my actions be of integrity?’”
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Discover her many creations on her web site.
