No Dot Art!

Here's why I'm not using the type of dots traditionally associted with Australian Indigenous artistry in my Walkabout project...

When the dots cross the line - Link

One of the key aspects of Walkabout is that the knowledge of the past has been lost, and it needs to be rekindled to bring balance to the land. I've discussed this quite a bit in previous posts about the game, but it's nice to see this cross my feed while I'm working on character sheets and play aids for the game.

Much Australian Indigenous culture has been whitewashed (yes, this choice of wording is deliberate), and in many cases the remaining Indigenous communities have taken the successful elements of other Indigenous communities and have claimed them as their own. I work in a school with a high Indigenous population, in fact is has one of the highest numbers of Indigenous students at any school in our state, and has been identified as the largest of the "Connected Communities" schools (which is a program dedicated to improving eduational outcomes in Indigenous communities). One of the key areas for addressing Indigenous culture has been to incorporate it into lesson strategies and educational opportunities for our students, however when it comes to artwork and cultural heritage, I see the same photocopied "Indigenous symbolism" sheets that I've seen in schools hundreds of kilometres away in Sydney, and over a thousand kilometre away on the southern border of the state. 

These are the symbols expected to be used by Indigenous communities, and with much of their connection to culture and ancestry stripped away due to government policies and interventions by religious organisations the current generations of artists use what they can from whatever sources are available. Some of these symbols may have been used locally, but there would have been variations and alternatives. Having everyone use the same symbolism would almost be akin to expecting someone Belgian to use Italian as their method of writing...(we're looking at the same types of distances here). The fact that there were over 250 different languages and dialects in Australia before colonisation reinforces the idea that the various forms of symbolism would have been quite different too.   

It's sad, but that's all a part of the story. It's something that the game seeks to address.

I've made efforts to get these ideas developed in an educational setting, but generally keep getting stonewalled. The students overall have been receptive to roleplaying, and developing games that cater to their tatses and tell stories important to them, but bureaucracy is run by bureaucrats, so I have to develop this outside of school at the moment. This is especially annoying, when we've been told to propose new and innovative educational strategies.

Enough rant for the moment.

(I previously discussed a lot of these ideas in 2017)