A conversation
Margo, as the first Curator of Indigenous Australian Art to be employed at the Queensland Art Gallery you obviously have a broad and diverse constituency in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and an important role in establishing how Indigenous art is seen within the state collection, both physically and philosophically. I'd like to ask about those issues, but first can you tell us something of your own background in the arts?
Colleen Wall Sarah, to do this Murri–style Margo should introduce herself, tell us who she is.1
Margo Neale My people originally came from Albany in Western Australia which is the Mirning language group, but they 're called Nyoongah. My grandmother grew up in Wongi country around the Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie area but later moved across to Victoria. I grew up in Gippsland I went to Arnhem Land when I was twenty-one. Then to Canberra where I continued having a family. Then I went to Christmas Island which has essentially an Asian population. I was there for about five years and wrote some social histories- oral history style books.
I've worked in lots of different areas. First I did primary school training then art teacher training. I've been studying ever since. Even when I was in Arnhem Land I was doing a degree through Queensland University. I was living in the camps of Arnhem Land and was studying, of all things, Shakespeare! I did a degree in English literature as that was one of the few majors offered externally. So, I have been a teacher, an artist, a teacher of English as a second language, a lecturer at the National Gallery of Australia , a writer, a business... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline