Today at the Kerry Lowe Gallery in Newton, I met photographer and arts curator, Toni Tapp Coutts. She and her sister had come down from Katherine, in the Northern Territory, to arrange an exhibition of their work.
Toni told me about the Aboriginal animator, Tommy Lewis, who made a series of animated stories called Dust Echoes, in which he used puppets to tell his stories. She also told me about the ABC documentary, Yella Fella, which is about him. Toni said that animation was a powerful medium for Aboriginal people to tell their stories.
Lewis writes,
Dust Echoes is one way that we are bringing everyone back to the same campfire – black and white. We are telling our stories to you in a way you can understand, to help you see, hear and know. And we are telling these stories to ourselves, so that we will always remember, with pride, who we are.