Walking through a Songline is a digital art experience produced by the National Museum of Australia in partnership with Mosster Studio, with the ongoing support of the traditional First Nations’ custodian and knowledge holders of this story. The show celebrates the rich indigenous art and culture from Australia, brought to Bengaluru with the help of the Australian Consulate.
At Bengaluru’s Science Gallery, ‘Walking through a Songline’ is an interactive show that uses Songlines that are pathways of knowledge that crisscross the continent and form the foundational stories of Australia. The six minute show is in a dark makeshift room and features flashing lights, moving images and sounds. You will feel an illusion of movement and this exhibition contains names, images, and voices of deceased indigenous Australians.
What are Songlines?
Songlines are like the epic poems of the great oral traditions from around the world, songlines are a way of holding and passing on knowledge in non- text-based societies. Access to this knowledge ranges from public versions to secret/sacred or closed versions, available custodians. Songlines explain creation and transmit cultural values, including protocols of behavior and how to live sustainably on this continent, Australia’s First Nations peoples have for millennia. By embedding that information in story, performance and art, an entire continent has been mapped by and for its people and memorable for generations.
In cultures around the world, epic stories are passed from one generation to the next. They are a way to explain history, share knowledge and maintain culture. For the First Nations peoples of Australia, these stories are known as Songlines or Dreaming tracks. They map the routes and activities of Ancestral creator beings, imprinting the stories in the features of the land. Songlines explain creation and transmit cultural values, including protocols of behavior and how to live sustainably on the continent, as Australia’s First Nations peoples have done for millennia. By embedding that information in story, performance and art, an entire continent has been mapped by and for its people and remains memorable for generations.
Seven Sisters Songline
Walking through a Songline imagines the experience of being immersed in a songline visualises the Seven Sisters songline, a story that changes as country changes across the continent and the lands of many different groups. It is also a universal drama played out across the night sky seer constellation and the Pleiades.
The Pleiades star cluster is referred to by many cultures including Greek, Hindu and Australia’s First Nations, as seven women sometimes sisters, mothers or wives. The Seven Sisters Songline begins in Australia’s Western Desert, in Martu Country, where a group of sisters are being chased by a sorcerer looking for a wife. A shapeshifter, he uses many disguises to trick the sisters. But the sisters can shapeshift too, teasing their pursuer and creating songlines as they run and fly.
In the chase across Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) and Ngaanyatjarra lands, the language and the story changes as the sisters flee across different countries. As the Seven Sisters travel through desert lands and across the sky, they map country for millennia to come. Walking through a Songline, is an immersive digital experience that visualises the Seven Sisters Songline.
Apart from Songlines, there is also a small display of Babbarra textiles, some co-created with Tharangini studio. Babbarra Women’s Centre in collaboration with Tharangini studio is developing a unique woodblock textile project supported by the Centre for Australia-India Relations, Maitri Grants. Located in Maningrida, 500 km east of Darwin, the center prioritises the preservation of women’s ancestral narratives through the production of unique, hand printed textiles via Babbara Designs.
There are also several books related to Australian art and culture as well as the history related to Aboriginal Australians which visitors can pick up and read.
