More than 100 paintings on tree bark by Australian Aborigines are on display in Taipei.
The Old Masters: Australia’s Great Bark Artists — 134 works of mostly tree bark paintings and clay figurines — opened on Friday at the National Taiwan Museum in Zhongzheng District (中正).
The works come primarily from the Arnhem Land region of Australia’s Northern Territory, the traditional home of the Yolngu people, said Margo Neale, senior curator of the Indigenous Knowledge Centre at the National Museum of Australia, which helped organize the exhibition.
“It is a very highly sophisticated way of passing on culture that survives today. These bark paintings are like messages on note paper, where you write information to tell other people things,” Neale said.
The paintings are like encyclopedias, because they hold the identity of the artist, she said, adding that if a person is knowledgeable enough, they can see the information embedded in the paintings.
Neale said that Djan’kawu Cross Back to the Mainland, painted by Djunmal in 1966, describes a mythical story of two sisters who came to Australia and dug holes in to provide the land with irrigation water.
“If you look, you can see the water holes and the digging sticks, and all of these different patterns refer to salt or fresh water and mud plains,” Neale said. “So it’s a geographical map of a particular coast at the top of Australia.”
The Aboriginal communities of Taiwan and Australia have closely related anthropology and genetics, Deputy Minister of Culture Hsiao Tsung-huang (蕭宗煌) said.
“The National Taiwan Museum and the National Museum of Australia are extremely proud to present this exhibition with the highest respect to Aboriginal communities,” he said.
When the exhibition ends on Feb. 9 next year, the works of art are to be returned to Australia.
Nipah virus infection is to be officially listed as a category 5 notifiable infectious disease in Taiwan in March, while clinical treatment guidelines are being formulated, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. With Nipah infections being reported in other countries and considering its relatively high fatality rate, the centers on Jan. 16 announced that it would be listed as a notifiable infectious disease to bolster the nation’s systematic early warning system and increase public awareness, the CDC said. Bangladesh reported four fatal cases last year in separate districts, with three linked to raw date palm sap consumption, CDC Epidemic Intelligence
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
Two Taiwanese prosecutors were questioned by Chinese security personnel at their hotel during a trip to China’s Henan Province this month, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. The officers had personal information on the prosecutors, including “when they were assigned to their posts, their work locations and job titles,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said. On top of asking about their agencies and positions, the officers also questioned the prosecutors about the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement, a pact that serves as the framework for Taiwan-China cooperation on combating crime and providing judicial assistance, Liang
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
RSS