Emigrate-to-Australia is sharing a series of articles on the delights of Australia’s Heritage. Here is our 4th Update!

In our next article on the cultural treasures to greet you when you visit or migrate to Australia, we look at some indigenous art. Australia’s local art is a rich cultural tapestry woven by its First Nations people, and nowhere is this more evident than in the diverse array of Indigenous sculptures and carvings that tell the stories of the land’s ancient history. From the captivating ‘Fruit Bats’ sculpture by Lin Onus to the hauntingly beautiful Pukamani funeral poles of the Tiwi people, these artistic expressions offer a glimpse into the spiritual and cultural significance of Australia’s Aboriginal communities.

The ‘Fruit Bats’ sculpture, with its unique incorporation of the iconic Hills Hoist clothesline, is a testament to the creativity and resourcefulness of Indigenous artists. Traditional cross-hatching designs adorn the life-sized fruit bats, hanging in a mesmerizing display that draws visitors into the heart of Aboriginal culture. Similarly, the mass of hollow log coffins from central Arnhem Land housed in the National Gallery invites exploration and contemplation, showcasing the diversity and depth of Indigenous artistic expression.

Camp dog sculptures, unassuming yet powerful in their representation, capture the essence of real camp dogs that populate Indigenous communities. Bush Critter sculptures, carved with wild expressions, reflect the surprises of the bush, creating a connection between art and nature. Dennis Nona’s exquisite bronze and aluminum sculptures, particularly those of stingrays, add a touch of finesse and exoticism to the cultural landscape.

While these artworks reflect both everyday needs and ceremonial purposes, recent incidents of vandalism highlight the urgent need for greater education and respect. Ancient Aboriginal rock carvings, some dating back thousands of years, have been marred by scratches, fire remnants, and motorcycle tracks. The damage not only impacts the physical sites but also inflicts emotional wounds on the Indigenous communities connected to these sacred places.

Local Aboriginal woman Minmi Gugubarra expresses the deep emotional toll of the vandalism, emphasizing that these carvings are more than drawings—they are lifeblood, carrying the stories and spirituality of her people. The call for better education resonates strongly, as many Australians may not fully understand the historical significance of these sites, some of which predate structures like the pyramids of Egypt. If you are migrating to Australia ensure you learn about the amazing indigenous artifacts so that you can help to spread the word and protect them!.

Gavi Duncan, a Gomilaroi, Mandandanji, and Awaba man, emphasizes the importance of recognizing and respecting these sites, which are older than iconic landmarks worldwide. The need for better protection, education, and consultation with Aboriginal communities is clear. Vandalism reflects a broader issue of under-education about the significance of these places, prompting a call for more comprehensive efforts to bridge the cultural gap.

While incidents of vandalism cast a shadow, there are ongoing efforts by organizations like the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) and the Forestry Corporation to work with local Aboriginal communities. Signs at sites like Bulgandry Aboriginal Art Site and collaborations with cultural heritage supervisors demonstrate a commitment to educating visitors about the sacred nature of these locations.

Australia’s Indigenous art stands as a testament to the enduring spirit of its First Nations people. As we marvel at these expressions of culture, it is crucial to recognize the responsibility we all share in preserving and respecting the sacred sites that hold the stories of Australia’s ancient past. Through education, consultation, and increased awareness, we can ensure that these cultural treasures continue to inspire and connect us all.

There are many resources online if you would like to learn more or visit your local museum when you arrive in Australia.

Amanda Peters’ newest novel, “The Berry Pickers,” is all about cause and effect.

“The Berry Pickers” follows a Mi’kmaq family torn apart after the disappearance of its youngest member, a little girl named Ruthie. Peters wrote the novel after hearing her father, a berry picker himself, tell stories about his days in Maine. In following this narrative, Peters highlighted the traumatic echoes that separation can create.

“I feel like I’ve succeeded in doing something that can help, so to speak, even though it is fiction. Helping people to see that there are lasting consequences when you do something like that. When you take a child away from her family and her culture, there is something missing there,” Peters said in an interview with The Harvard Crimson. “There are consequences for everybody. And they’re not good consequences 99% of the time.”

Born and raised in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia, Peters is an associate professor in the Department of English and Theatre at Acadia University as well as an author. In the interview, Peters expanded on her writing journey and the process behind “The Berry Pickers.”

The novel follows the perspectives of Joe and Norma, two characters dealing with a terrible loss, weaving their stories of grief together into an enchanting narrative. Keeping these dual voices unique was key to Peters’ writing process.

“As I started writing, I found that I wasn’t sure I was being true to Joe’s voice and wasn’t sure if I was being true to Norma’s voice. So I just wrote all Joe’s. And then I wrote all the Norma’s, and then I put it together like a puzzle,” said Peters. “I really needed the voices to be very distinct because they have two different life experiences.”

In following the story of a lost Native child, Peters’ novel comments on the dark legacy of Native American residential schools and how young Indigenous girls have been taken from their families across North America. Peters did not write the novel with this parallel in mind, but she is not lost to how her book echoes history.

“The intention of the novel was to tell a good story,” Peters said. “But I think being an Indigenous person living and working in my Indigenous communities for years, and sitting and listening to residential school survivors tell their stories. Listening to those stories — I think it just comes as a natural product of being who I am and my life experiences.”

Incorporating Indigenous stories naturally fits into Peters’ writing. Still, getting to this place took Peters some time.

“I used to think that I shouldn’t write Indigenous stories, just because I wasn’t raised on the reserve, I don’t speak my language. The effects of colonization succeeded here, unfortunately,” Peters said.

But avoiding this part of herself led to unsatisfactory stories.

“They lacked heart. They lacked soul, they lacked rhythm, they lacked everything. So then I wrote my first Indigenous short story, it was a piece of flash fiction, and I loved it. It had my voice, the voice I wanted to bring,” Peters said.

Embracing her mixed Mi’kmaq and settler ancestry has allowed Peters to find her truest voice.

“I’m coming into that part of myself late in life, as a lot of Indigenous people are because of the effects of colonization. And I think my writing is actually the way I’m doing that. It’s uplifting me, and it’s making me want to know more,” she said.

Getting to this part of her writing journey wasn’t quick for Peters. Before becoming a published author, Peters faced many challenges and rejections. Still, she found that these roadblocks only represent how far she’s come.

“I always say, ‘Love those rejection letters,’ because they’re the stepping stone to better things,” Peters said.

Peters encouraged people in creative fields to keep working on their art, no matter how long it takes to get it out in the world.

“I always say, ‘Just keep going,’” Peters said. “I’m 46 when my first novel came out. I had lots of rejections before that. Lots of short stories and agents and stuff like that. But I just wanted to keep going, because I loved it. It’s what I loved.”

“So it’s never too late to start. And never too early to start either. I wrote a short story when I was 21 that I’m still tinkering with,” Peters said. “Just keep going.”

This attitude of getting through the hardest parts of life is reflected in “The Berry Pickers.” In both her work ethic and her stories, Peters encourages readers to keep fighting and to always embrace their truest identities.

—Staff writer Hannah E. Gadway can be reached at hannah.gadway@thecrimson.com.

Google “The Most Famous Artist,” and one of the first links that comes up is for a guy named Matty Mo. His work is designed to grab attention online — he’s best known for turning the “Hollywood” sign into one that said “Hollyweed,” and says his preferred medium is “tomfoolery.”

But after years of flashy projects that were all about the internet, Mo wants to get loud about things like climate change.

“Resilience, sustainability and self sufficiency — those are the topics that I think matter as we face future challenges,” Mo said.

So he reached out to another artist, Ajax Axe, who runs an organization called Kairos Futura in Aspen and Nairobi, Kenya. It’s an artist collective that collaborates with scientists and activists on projects related to climate change, on the premise that creative messaging and buzzworthy events can help more people think about their impact on the environment and engage with the world around them. (The initiative started as an “Aspen Space Station” installation a few years ago with a catchy slogan: “Earth is sexier than Mars.”)

Then, Axe invited Mo to a “Burn Lab” program earlier this year that started with a long day of manual labor on Basalt Mountain in the scar of the Lake Christine wildfire. More than half a dozen artists were part of a volunteer group to help the White River National Forest with a soil restoration project in a sliver of the 12,000 acres that burned back in 2018.

Axe said artists are good communicators, “and we’re capable of making issues that might be difficult to understand easy and visually appealing for people.”

“And so my goal is to help the scientists who are doing really important work to get more funding to be able to expand these wildfire ecosystem restoration projects,” she added.

Funding isn’t the only challenge, though. You also need manpower, according to U.S. Forest Service soil scientist Ryan Sparhawk.

“I’m a single resource for the forest and the only soil scientist on site,” he said. “I have a lot of work to do across the White River, and my time is limited, but when a group can come together to help me with this, it’s a big opportunity for me to try something new.”

The hard work started with shovels, as Axe and Mo helped Sparhawk dig a soil pit to gain a better sense of how the land irecovering from the fire.

“We’ve got burnt roots, there’s no soil structure in this, the organic matter is all burnt off,” Sparhawk said. “This is the result of a … high soil burn severity fire.”

And where there used to be a lot of different vegetation, now it’s mostly plumeless thistle, a prickly, invasive plant that isn’t great for wildlife habitat, cattle grazing or biodiversity.

The Forest Service could spray the land with herbicide — that would get rid of the thistle — but since they have some help from Kairos Futura, the crew gets to try something different, to see if they can restore the soil health with a mix of organisms like fungus and bacteria.

“Reintroducing that biological life back into these soils should help to make a system that is conducive to our native plant growth,” Sparhawk said.

Doing that is no leisurely stroll in the woods, though. Crews had to don heavy plastic backpacks, sloshing around with a “tea” that contains the microorganisms, and climb up a hill over fallen trees and pokey thistle, pumping a handle up and down to get the liquid out.

Sparhawk said this kind of experimental project with the Forest Service couldn’t happen without help from a group like Kairos Futura. But usually, the manpower comes from outdoor and environmental science groups. This project — a collaboration with Kairos Futura and the advocacy nonprofit Wilderness Workshop — stood out because it also involved painters and sculptors.

“I have not seen anything like this before with artists,” he said.

“And so bringing (them) on was a really unique and fun experience for me to … think about our natural resources in a different way,” Sparhawk added.

Thinking about natural resources in a new way is the whole point of Kairos Futura. So after that long, hard day in the field, the “Burn Lab” program met in a cozy cabin in the woods and started brainstorming.

“I was trying to figure out, how can we make it such a pleasurable experience that when people finish the day, they’re like, ‘I can’t wait to go back again and do that next weekend,’ right?” Axe said.

That’s going to be critical, based on the numbers Matty Mo has been crunching. The Lake Christine fire burned more than 12,000 acres, and it took one exhausting day with roughly a dozen people to help restore a tiny fraction of that land.

”I think the scale of the problem became very apparent to me, after spending eight hours with 12 people, only fixing maybe two acres,” Mo said.

But while the repair efforts covered only a couple of acres, artist Hannah Rothstein said it felt great to get out in the dirt and take action in a more boots-on-the-ground way.

“I’m excited about having a tactical way to help the planet, because so often, there’s … so much talk and no action,” Rothstein said. “And this is a pretty easy way to make an impact and an easy way for me to do that beyond just making art.”

At the brainstorming session, the artists came up with ideas like a climate camp, where people might actually pay to have this experience if it included catering, a DJ and maybe some matching outfits that would help people develop a sense of shared identity.

“We have a whole Burning Man culture here that we can tap into, right?” Axe said. “Like, we have a culture of this idea of radical self-reliance, of people getting teams together, of organizing and going out and being in tough conditions. So how can we not hack that for the entire western United States to be actually mobilizing these teams into the field?”

Mobilization is part of Kairos Futura’s evolution, as it expands its programming beyond book clubs and future-forward happy hours to include more work in the field. Axe wants to build on the pledges and petitions that support climate initiatives with efforts that encourage everyone to get their hands dirty, too.

Even a small contribution to something like soil restoration can help people feel like they’re part of a climate solution, Axe said.

“When we feel helpless is when we feel the most hopeless,” she said. “And I think when we feel like there is clear action that can be taken to … mitigate or to transform a tragic situation into something that can promise hope for the future, I think that that is always going to be a source of energy and momentum for both individuals and communities.”

Sparhawk, from the Forest Service, hopes that’s the case too.

He said they’re in the planning stages for future collaborations with Kairos Futura. And while teaming up with artists may be unusual in his line of work, he’s looking forward to more of it.

CHICAGO (WLS) — The Christmas movie season is in full swing, and the latest one that just started streaming is “Dashing Through the Snow.”

The movie stars Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, who is from Champaign, Illinois, and Lil Rel Howery, who is from Chicago. They joined ABC7 to talk about their Yuletide comedy.

Ludacris plays a dad with a grudge against the holiday, but he and his daughter discover the rollicking spirit of the season!

“I call everything this time of year ‘Luda-Christmas,’ including this movie,” Ludacris said.

He plays the ultimate skeptic in the film, but that is a big departure from his real-life festive feelings.

“I’m the present day Scrooge,” Ludacris said. “I love doing things that people will say, ‘I would never have saw Luda in that character.’ So that’s exactly why I did it. That’s what acting is all about.”

Lil Rel Howery first got to know ABC7’s Hosea Sanders at a Bud Billiken Parade a few years ago, which is an iconic Chicago tradition. Now, he’s landed an iconic role in his new film.

“You know, I didn’t know I was going to be Santa Claus,” Howery said. “I’m excited, especially for my hometown of Chicago, to represent Chicago as the Black Santa. This is a perfect time for this very funny, humorous, healing movie.”

The actors hope to send a message of joy with their film to Chicago and beyond.

“One of the biggest things I hope people take away, with me starring in this, I hope I inspire other Chicago artists, young people that dreams do come true,” Howery said. “I’m playing Santa Claus in a Disney movie, and I’m from the West Side of Chicago.”

“Dashing Through the Snow” is now streaming on Disney+.

“I’m gonna say you will laugh during this movie, and if you’ve ever gone through anything and had a little bit of trauma you might cry as well,” Ludacris said. “And those are the type of movies, those emotional roller coasters, that stick with you for the rest of your life.”

The Walt Disney Company is the parent company of ABC7 Chicago.