Testimony, Treaty and Decolonising Indigenous History from Images

Abstract

This paper examines Indigenous painting and art narrative of the far western desert as decolonising method. Indigenous experiences offered in images are studied for their value as Indigenous knowledges alongside a framework of epistemological racism that is re-evaluated here as an outcome of the European Enlightenment. In presenting Indigenous lived realities, knowledge and worldviews, it takes a focus on what is, rather than what is not and explores some potential methods of recording the I and not the Other. In observing this way of knowing the past the paper focuses on ways of differentiating Indigenous histories from Eurocentric understandings of the past.