My focus so far has been on the agency of artists in communities in northern and Central Australia. The initial stimulus for many of the changes that resulted in the inclusion of Indigenous art and artists as part of the national agenda came from ‘remote’ Australia. The Aboriginal Arts Board in its early years had a bias towards what were seen to be more traditionally oriented communities, and the Aboriginal Arts Award established by the NT Museum and Art Gallery had a similar focus and was certainly criticised on that basis by some. Their focus, however, shifted quite rapidly over time and became broader. Indeed, the people who were involved in setting up such organisations early on were very responsive to the critiques that developed and helped change the focus of institutions such as the Aboriginal Arts Board.

Indigenous artists in south-eastern and Western Australia originally felt themselves to be as much excluded from the mainstream of Australian art as did artists in the north, and in many respects their artworks were less visible. The lack of visibility and lack of support, however, did not mean a lack of active engagement with arts or a lack of art practice.^[22] Aboriginal people in southern Australia demanded recognition and support for their creativity. Many Indigenous artists were emerging in south-eastern Australia in the late 1970s and 1980s, at a time when Aboriginal art was beginning to be more firmly established in the national consciousness; artists such as Leslie Griggs, Gordon Syron, Lin Onus, Robert Campbell, Jnr, Arone Meeks, Fiona Foley and Avril Quail were beginning to establish their reputations at that time. As Brenda Croft wrote, however, ‘at the time there was significant resistance to this new set of artists. The reaction was based on assimilationist assumptions that had existed covertly from the first half of the century.’^[23] These assumptions positioned the art of Indigenous people in the south as inherently inauthentic. And, just as in the north, it was the agency of the artists themselves that created the grassroots organisations with a capacity to grow. The best-known example of an Indigenous art cooperative in south-eastern Australia is Boomalli, established in 1987. Croft’s outline history of Boomalli shows how it grew out of a group of activist Indigenous artists who eventually came together to create a network of support for each other, to overcome prejudices against their work and to create a place for it to be exhibited and sold.^[24]

The circumstances of Indigenous artists living in south-eastern Australia are clearly very different from those in many of the communities in northern Australia, though no hard and fast boundary should be drawn. The artists of the south come from many different communities with different histories and in many cases have developed distinctive individual styles.^[25] In some cases, the artists are self-taught, others are reconnecting with ‘local’ traditions and many are art-school trained and are familiar with Western art discourse and theory. Taking account of their diversity, however, they found themselves in a similar position in the art world, struggling with issues of authenticity and identity, sharing a history of exclusion and attuned to many of the same themes in their lives and the lives of their families. ‘For urban and rural Indigenous people the visual arts provided a long-awaited platform from which to present their perspective, and previously disregarded collective history that acknowledged different experiences.’^[26] Hence, an organisation such as Boomalli grew out of the artists’ common interests and a desire to work together and collaboratively achieve common objectives while at the same time maintaining individual identity; ‘they shared experiences that formed a bond between them and encouraged them to exhibit collectively’.^[27]

The same governmental structures that supported the art of remote regions were used to facilitate the development of Indigenous organisations in south-eastern Australia. Boomalli was strongly supported in its early years by the Aboriginal Arts Board under its then director, Gary Foley.^[28] Support for travelling exhibitions overseas and representation in art awards were equally important as means of establishing presence in the art world, but also as signals of identity. The political context was, however, different: in the south-east, people faced the challenge to their ‘authenticity’ as Indigenous artists. Initially, Boomalli’s aim was to create the spaces within the national framework for the art of Indigenous people from south-eastern Australia. This meant engaging with and challenging the structures of organisations that had been set up to support Aboriginal artists, ensuring that they were oriented towards the diversity of Aboriginal art practice rather than particular sectors. In the case of art awards, it required changing the conception of Aboriginal art and broadening categories.

Boomalli began as a collective venture for its ten original members and has survived into the present through a number of transformations. It has changed as circumstances have changed and as the original members’ lives have developed in different directions. Early on, it addressed a national agenda, responding to the 1988 Bicentennial celebrations by inserting an Indigenous presence, increasing opportunities for urban artists and developing exhibition programs. Boomalli provided a creative environment for artists such as Tracey Moffatt and Robert Campbell, Jnr, and leading curators including Hetti Perkins and Brenda Croft. Inevitably, Boomalli has a different history from an art centre such as Buku Larrnggay Mulka at Yirrkala, where the focus is on expanding the connections of the local community with the national and global. At Boomalli, there is a stronger focus on individual careers. Both, however, are evolving grassroots organisations that provide a focal point for community action.

The struggle to include the diversity of Indigenous Australian artists within the same overall framework could have been divisive, but on the whole it has had almost the opposite effect. The opening out of the categories of Indigenous ‘art’ and ‘artist’ also opened up art discourse across the Indigenous community and created many collaborations. Indeed, the pioneering exhibition Koori Art ’84 included the Yolngu artist Banduk Marika, who had just begun her career as a printmaker. It was this exhibition that provided the seeds from which Boomalli grew. In the mid-1980s, artists such as Lin Onus and Fiona Foley established close relationships with artists in Arnhem Land and Central Australia, and the collaborative curatorial practice of Djon Mundine opened up exciting areas of art practice and exhibition. Over time, Aboriginal art has come to be an arena in which diversity is accepted, and once diversity is accepted room is created for relatively autonomous traditions to exist side by side and for local and regional art histories to be produced.^[29] Certainly, the possibility for opposition and conflict remain always present. Art skirts the boundaries of authenticity and identity: people can deny that what others are producing is art or challenge the Indigeneity of what is produced. Such heat seems always to be a potential of art practice where art is integral to the ways people act in the world.