YININMADYEMI Thou didst let fall, artwork by Tony Albert (Photograph by Paul Patterson, image courtesy City of Sydney)
On Tuesday 31 March 2015, the artwork YININMADYEMI Thou didst let fall was unveiled in Hyde Park south to honour Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service men and women. Find out more on the City Art website and the City of Sydney website here.
A display at Customs House Library in April and new content published on the Sydney Barani website provides a context to this artwork by exploring the long history of Aboriginal people defending country and nation, both inside Australia and overseas. Frontier warriors take their place alongside diggers and peace-keeping personnel who have served in every international conflict, from World War 1 to Afghanistan. The display also charts the activist movement led by veterans of World War 2 to acknowledge the service of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander military personnel, a movement which began in the 1960s and grows year by year in the Coloured Diggers march on Anzac Day.
The City of Sydney’s history team has also overseen a new series of oral history interviews with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service people and their families as part of the Centenary of ANZAC and to support the development of YININMADYEMI. Comprising 16 interviews with diggers and their descendants, the oral history collection is a major contribution to the historical record. Through the powerful medium of oral testimony, the interviews shed light on an under-documented aspect of Australia’s service history. You can listen to the interviews on the Sydney Oral Histories website and find out more about the project here.
Comments are closed.