“Someone told me recently that ‘rock art is dead.’ If ‘Art’ was dead, that would not matter to we Aborigines. We have never thought of our rock-paintings as ‘Art.’ To us they are IMAGES. IMAGES with ENERGIES that keep us ALIVE—EVERY PERSON, EVERYTHING WE STAND ON, ARE MADE FROM; EAT AND LIVE ON.
[…]
Instead of talking about ‘Rock Art’, we should be thinking about our responsibility to keep all things of Nature alive, to STIMULATE those places the way Aborigines have always done in the past.”
This is a quote from the well-known statement about ‘rock art’ by David Mowaljarlai (Mowanjum community, Western Australia).
Mowaljarlai, David, Patricia Vinnicombe, Graeme K. Ward, and Christopher Chippindale. 1988. “Repainting of images on rock in Australia and the maintenance of Aboriginal culture”. Antiquity 62 (237): 690-696.
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