14 Field schools in art centres and “learning on Country”

School of Communication and Arts

Acknowledgements

I live, work and learn, on the unceded traditional homelands of Meanjin (Brisbane) – the Brisbane River and Moreton Bay regions of Turrbal, Yuggera, Yagera, Quandamooka and other First Nations communities. This account of Indigenous field schools that follows could not have occurred without the wisdom, patience and guidance of numerous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander  people with whom I have worked over the past three decades. This is fundamentally their story and, on this occasion, I happen to be the storyteller. In particular, I want to acknowledge the towering guidance and inspiration of senior staff of The University of Queensland’s (UQ) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit in the 2000s: Michael Williams (Director), Dr Jackie Huggins (Deputy Director) and Sam Watson (Samuel William Watson 1952–2019). In more recent years, I have been extremely fortunate to work with, and learn from, Professor Tracey Bunda, Professor of Indigenous Education in UQ’s Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous Engagement), and Dr r e a Saunders, former lecturer in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies program and revered Australian artist. Several non-Indigenous colleagues and co-workers have been cross-cultural role models over the years, most notably Michael Eather, Director of Fireworks Gallery, and Associate Professor Katelyn Barney, who is also currently working in UQ’s Office of the DVC (Indigenous Engagement) as well as teaching within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies program. Lastly, but by no means least, I owe a profound debt of gratitude to all of the Indigenous artists, curators, community workers and their families across Australia with whom I have been privileged to work. This also includes two Quandamooka colleagues and friends: Sonja Carmichael, whose journey to her Master of Philosophy in Art History I shared, and Freja Carmichael, Curator of UQ Art Museum, who is completing her PhD thesis in Art History. It has been an honour!

Introduction

Indigenous art is a significant aspect of the visual arts industry in Australia and, in fact, Indigenous art largely defines Australian art on the global stage (Australian Academy of the Humanities, 2021). The art history of Australian Indigenous art is thus a pillar of any art history major in this country. UQ originally included the study of Australian Indigenous art in its curriculum through a course in Postcolonial Art, and in 2005 this course title changed to Australian Indigenous Art, expanding to Australia Pacific Indigenous Arts in 2016. The decision to include Pacific Indigenous arts drew on the fact that much of Australian Indigenous art is produced within an Indigenous arts and culture network that includes Pacific nations and operates across the Australian arts industry. This is particularly so in Queensland where the Queensland Art Gallery|Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) is the base of the recurring Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art. The Art History major additionally includes a course involving a prolonged Australian Indigenous arts and culture on Country learning activity (henceforth referred to as “field school”). This field school course evolved from a not-for-credit extra-curricular companion experience to the more conventionally delivered Australia Pacific Indigenous Arts course. After consultation with art centres and UQ learning advisors, the field school’s learning activities were subsequently mapped onto formal learning outcomes and assessment frameworks to become a full academic credit course towards the Art History and Australian Studies majors, as well as a general elective in the Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Advanced Humanities (Honours) and other programs where it fulfils elective capacity. Both courses are also offered as part of the Studies Abroad program, allowing international students to complete the courses as part of their Australian Studies requirement. Where capacity permits, the field school includes postgraduate students and staff seeking career professional development in accordance with Universities Australia’s Indigenous Strategy 2022–2025 (2022) and UQ’s Indigenising Curriculum: Consultation Green Paper (Bunda, 2022). Due to this diverse cohort, the field school is designed to incorporate a broad scope of learning activities scaffolded by a choice of discipline-specific approaches to assessment, as discussed below. Development and facilitation of the Indigenous arts field schools involved an integration of the full scope of the Indigenising Curriculum Design Principles outlined in the aforementioned Green Paper. While Relationships, Reciprocity, the centrality of Country and Cultural Capability are obvious alignments with the principles, this chapter also touches upon some unexpected thinking on alignments with Benefits and Truth.

This chapter argues that on Country learning experiences are a powerful although challenging asset to Indigenising the university curriculum in the humanities, and beyond, but require a strong foundation in host communities’ consultation and collaboration. Two key pedagogies drive the field school course: learning on Country (Fogarty & Schwab, 2012; Grant, 2024; Jackson-Barrett & Lee-Hammond, 2018) and industry-led experiential learning (Billet 2014; Jackson, 2015).

Learning on Country is a fundamental Australian Indigenous epistemology stemming from longstanding traditions of Country being the classroom where children learn how the world around them – people, places, flora, fauna, the cosmos – is invested with Indigenous knowledges and Indigenous perspectives on social and moral order. It is now fundamental to many schools teaching Australian Indigenous students. (Karla Grant’s 2024 three-episode series Learning on Country broadcast on NITV provides an excellent profile.) An extension of learning on Country has occurred in more recent years where non-Indigenous students and visitors are encouraged to visit Indigenous communities and organisations offering short-term and culturally appropriate educational opportunities (Jones, 2021; Langton, 2023; MacGill et al., 2012; Milkins & Scott, 2021; Murphy, 2017).

The second pedagogy of experiential industry-led learning provides students with an understanding of how much of Australian Indigenous art is produced in the network of collaborative art centres, collectives and community organisations across Australia (Throsby & Petetskaya, 2016). Key representative bodies of art centres include:

• Desart (Central Australia)
• ANKA Arnhem, Northern and Kimberley Artists (Kimberley and Northern part of Northern Territory)
• IACA Indigenous Art Centre Alliance (North Queensland)
• AACHWA Aboriginal Art Centre Hub Western Australia
• APY Art Centre Collective (Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands)
• ART lists 88 art centres from all of states and territories of Australia.

Many other Indigenous-owned art and cultural centres, art studios, co-operatives, collectives and galleries beyond these representative bodies exist across every state and territory in the country (Langton, 2018; 2023). Longstanding metropolitan co-operatives/collectives include Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-op in Sydney and proppaNOW artists collective in Brisbane. Visiting any of these Indigenous art institutions has the potential to instil knowledge about the cultural and socio-political context of the art, the Country of the artists and their individual stories, and the important and distinct functions of these organisations as industry representatives for artists and as community cultural hubs (Butler, 2019a; 2019b; Langton, 2018; 2023; Schmidt, 2019). However, the core business of art centres is to support the artists and their Indigenous communities as dictated by their individual institutional guidelines. Therefore, any planning for field schools takes a great deal of art centre discussion as to whether additional field school tasks required of artists, arts centre workers and community members are both culturally safe and viable in diversifying income streams and remuneration (Bunda, 2022; Bunda & Barney, 2023–present).

These educational field trips/schools are almost unanimously regarded as a life-changing experience in the professional and personal development of students and visitors. This chapter details several advantages and challenges in the evolution of Indigenous arts and culture field schools offered in UQ’s Art History major, and profiles how the holistic and interconnected nature of Indigenous knowledges and perspectives (Bunda 2022; 2023) grounding field schools helps UQ to embed Indigenous perspectives across all intellectual endeavours, and beyond disciplinary silos.

Locating myself

Excellent publications over recent years urge researchers, teachers and students to approach knowledge in far more contingent, and respectful, ways that recognise epistemologies as always embedded in one’s own individual standpoint. For myself as a researcher and a teacher, I have always found Denis Foley’s (2003) “Indigenous Epistemology and Indigenous Standpoint Theory” to be a most succinct and effective framework for locating myself prior to any engagement with Indigenous knowledges. The process of reflecting on one’s own prior assumptions about a subject and considering the contexts in which those assumptions developed is extremely productive. In terms of this discussion about my role in Indigenous field schools, I find that locating myself exposes experiences of learning when I didn’t know I was learning, inadequate understanding of the reciprocal nature of any knowledge exchange, and a profound indebtedness to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have articulated boundaries along with a spirit of generosity and gritty pragmatism.

Insights about the centrality of the Country principle in the Green Paper took me many years to learn. I only recently realised that I learnt a great deal about learning on Country from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people while I was in primary school in Kalkadoon Country of Mount Isa in far-western Queensland. I became quite close with a number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students through netball ,and their families often included me on bush trips to escape the town heat. “Teaching” was a gentle art on these trips when adults would just put a hand out to stop children from danger, missing something or being disrespectful. I recall originally thinking how unusual it was that people often didn’t talk – there was a lot of silence. But I soon came to love this quiet togetherness and eventually understood that people were communicating in non-verbal ways, with each other, and with Country. I still get goosebumps thinking about those magical silences when so many other sounds opened up. Learning skills from this time in holistic observation and sensory critical thinking and communication remained quite latent for many years. Deeper awareness only evolved in later years when visiting Alywarr/Anmatyerr communities in Central Australia while doing my PhD on the reception of art by Emily Kam Kngwarray. Responses (and non-responses) to research questions were often non-verbal, which is confronting for researchers seeking supporting “evidence”. Michael Williams and Jackie Huggins, mentioned above, also reminded me of the quiet but firm guidance of those more knowledgeable when I was working as a tutor for the Aboriginal Tutorial Assistance and Retention program (ATAR), now the Indigenous Tutorial Assistance and Retention program (ITAR), at UQ. They were unequivocal role models in instilling Indigenous perspectives that are now the pillars of UQ’s Indigenising curriculum initiatives (Bunda, 2022).

Building relationships, slow learning, developing a field school

The background to how UQ’s Indigenous arts field school evolved is important for signalling the fundamental importance of building relationships with community organisations prior to designing field schools (Bunda, 2022). My first field school actually occurred when fulfilling a commitment to the volunteer gallery guides at the Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) where I was working at the time in 2003. In 2004, I organised a trip to Central Australia to help guides learn more about the Desert Painting art included in QAG’s public tours at the time. My knowledge of Central Australia’s art centre network derived from my postgraduate research, and I connected with numerous people to organise a series of short visits to art centres and galleries. The following year, I organised a guided tour to the Kimberley that included the significant rock art context of contemporary art from the region. A few students from the Australian Indigenous Art course participated in the Kimberley trip as part of their extra-curricular studies. While this was successful in terms of orientation to some of the socio-cultural context of the art, it was very apparent that any real learning experience about the artists’ perspectives and the cultural context of the art required at least several days’ minimum stay in a community. Artists and visitors alike took some time to become comfortable with one another, and by the time that happened on a short stay, it was time to leave.

However, when we did stay several nights in the one community (Kalumburu, for example), the sense of engagement was remarkable (and unexpected, to be honest) for such a short time. So many visitors to remote communities are either service personnel who are there to “help” the community or else they are what is commonly referred to as “blow-throughs” who are generally tourists on tight schedules and only visit for an hour or two (Butler, 2017). It became apparent that we needed time in the community to show that we were there not to help, but to learn (looking for help ourselves in other words, but, importantly, prepared to pay for this help). The art centre manager was a key person in this regard in terms of working with artists before our arrival in devising lesson plans, workshops and all kinds of on Country teaching delivery options.

Organisation of these two tours relied more on a series of contacts rather than ongoing relationships and I often organised individual field experiences for students through Art History’s Art Internship course (and continue to do so), which is a full credit course towards the major. However, in 2010 a UQ Art History Honours student, Kris Carlon, whom I had supervised, commenced as Curator at Bula’bula Arts in Arnhem Land’s Ramingining community, 560 kilometres east of Darwin, in the Northern Territory. Kris’s role in working directly for Bula’bula artists together with his knowledge of who we were in Art History at UQ provided an opportunity to explore whether an embedded field school could occur.

Bula’bula artists are longstanding innovators, dating back to examples such as working with Djon Mundine (then Bula’bula Art Manager) on the astounding artwork The Aboriginal Memorial (1987–88), an installation of 200 lorrkin (hollow log coffins) that is a rite of passage feature into the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra (National Gallery of Australia, n.d.). Bula’bula artists were also stars in the filming of the 2006 movie Ten Canoes, which won awards at the Cannes Film Festival and Australian Film Institute (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2006). Bula’bula long understood the need for remote Arnhem Land art centres to keep connected, and visible, with the rest of the country and were prepared to think creatively about doing so.

After discussions with Kris, Bula’bula’s management committee (predominantly the artists) were keen to run classes and workshops once they understood that we were there as students rather than researchers. We had come to learn. The problem was that they weren’t entirely sure what we wanted to learn, and nor were we! I explained to Kris that our key learning outcomes were potentially to learn about the background, methods and stories behind the art available on the art market and in public collections, and also to learn about how art centres are run. This focus helped Kris to work with the artists on what they could offer us. Learning activities accelerated from a slow start once we all felt more or less on the same page. Students hence became involved in a two-day visit to the Arafura Swamp that is a spiritual and cultural heartland of the Ramingining’s cultural stories and signification, and also the location of Ten Canoes. Many of the Bula’bula weavers felt it important for students to understand the whole process of weaving because of inadequate art market recognition of fibre arts. Students thus went on bush excursions harvesting pandanus leaves and dyes from mangrove tree roots, dyeing, drying, and eventually weaving itself.

The weaving workshops were a signature learning activity and have become the hallmark of field schools. This relates to what I mentioned in the locating myself section about learning when not aware of learning. These workshops were very much a slow learning experience because, of necessity, the duration of each aspect of the process (navigating 4WD tracks; orientation in crocodile, snake, dehydration and sunstroke avoidance; learning how to harvest pandanus fronds after finding the most suitable ones; et cetera) is where the real learning occurs. A great deal of “yarning” occurred while waiting for things to happen and, because the artists appreciated their roles as teachers, they led discussions about Country, culture and the socio-political realities of remote community life. As a teacher, I was dumb-founded by how much knowledge was conveyed in this informal manner. Time was measured by our distance from food and the distance of the sun from the horizon. Space was measured by our 4WD’s fuel tank. Not much else mattered. Intimate moments of sharing frustrations (and sometimes physical pain) of not being able to split pandanus leaves with your thumb-nail transcended cultural and linguistic differences, and instilled deep respect for the knowledge and skill being shared (and apparently a respect from our hosts for our persistence to learn). The informal yarning that accompanied weaving was perhaps more significant in terms of artists and students alike sharing stories about families, aspirations, challenges, health and, of course, all things social media featured with just about everyone but myself.

Some of Bula’bula’s learning activities were transferable to other art centres where I subsequently ran field schools. These transferable activities included various aspects of how art centres support artists in supplying and preparing resources, writing artist statements and biographies, cataloguing, archiving, and packaging (which is unique given the unusual modes of freight in remote communities). Other learning activities were unique to the community context, such as Bula’bula’s Arafura Swamp visit and the subsequent public screening of Ten Canoes with many of the stars present to provide hilarious behind-the-scenes commentary. I ran eight field schools over seven years at Bula’bula and, while relationships deepened between UQ Art History and Bula’bula, there were always new people involved with new ideas for consideration.

Challenges, mistakes and more learning

While this first embedded field school was successful in terms of Bula’bula artists wanting us back the following year, and excellent student satisfaction surveys, there were many things to learn for the future.

The logistics of travel and accommodation are incredibly difficult to navigate in remote communities, and once in transit, I realised that some students required a great deal more preparation on this aspect of the tour in our pre-departure classes. Sitting on the rear bench seats of a troopy (Toyota Troop Carrier) over very rough roads for long distances is no joke, nor is the outrageous cost of food and essential items in community stores. Our preparatory classes initially focused on learning the history and culture of Yolŋu people and cultural protocols, without much information on the physical conditions of getting there – and being there. Some students, for example, experienced a culture shock regarding the extreme difficulties of remote community life within an Australia that had suddenly become unfamiliar. Unreliable power and water supply, limited and exorbitantly priced fuel, and fresh produce that was anything but fresh after the barge journey from Darwin, ingrained in students the inequity of everyday life experienced by people in remote communities. Other students sometimes experienced an alarmingly late realisation of fear of travel in very small aircraft or seacraft, off-road car sickness and no comprehension of what humidity in the “build-up” involves. I learned to include preparatory classes where I discussed these potential conditions much more clearly and also emphasised that in remote Australia, there are simply no options. Remote Australia is indescribably beautiful but living there involves an inner core of strength that is frequently under-estimated by visitors.

As a teacher, I was also unprepared for the internal group dynamics of students living in close proximity to each other 24/7 under these conditions for over a week. Some students experienced anxiety from a lack of personal space, while others were often perturbed by fellow students’ perceived racism or cultural ignorance. Mixing up different groups in learning activities helped somewhat, along with a lot of private, quiet chats (although this was difficult because as teachers you are constantly managing logistics for the next learning activities, damage control on existing ones and community people wanting you to meet other key people). Group work towards assessment (discussed below) experienced the highs and lows of success in bonding the cohort, but ironically appeared most successful where students in the group had diverse disciplinary backgrounds. As I developed the field schools, I opened the course to any undergraduate or postgraduate student in the University, including fields beyond the humanities, such as law, marine biology, psychology and architecture. Postgraduate students were also often included and this came with the added advantage of instilling a passion for postgraduate study with the undergraduates. UQ staff with career professional development aims were also included at times. The expensive nature of these field schools meant the diversity was almost a necessity to make the trips viable; however, as I became more adept at economising travel and accommodation costs, the diversity decreased as Art History undergraduate students were the first priority.

I experimented with assessment for such a diverse group of students. The most successful enduring model entailed a reflective field journal completed in the evenings while on the trip and a final assessment requiring students to create their own particular essay question, based on their experiences and disciplinary background, and to conduct contextual research to accompany evidence from their field journals to support discussion. The reflective journals required students to conduct primary research in the context of art production and to practise accuracy in terms of correct artist names and spelling, dates, medium, titles, et cetera. After seeking permission, they could take photographs of various aspects of the learning activities and include them in the journal. Each day also required students to record critical reflections in terms of what was learnt, what remained curious or challenging and what went wrong. Each evening students sat in small groups, or all together, and asked each other questions and discussed various aspects of the day. Many misunderstandings were ironed out in this fashion, particularly when a few artists joined us for this reflective time (Felten & Lambert, 2020). Sonja Carmichael, the Quandamooka weaver who was completing her Master of Philosophy at UQ, joined us on several field schools and was another vital contributor to these discussions. Sonja modelled behaviour in cultural protocols, respectful consideration and curiosity, and connections between life in remote Australia and her own Quandamooka Country, which is also a suburb of metropolitan Brisbane. This insight that every part of Australia that we stand on is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Country was powerfully evoked through Sonja’s interactions and connecting with artists and Traditional Owners.

My experiment in setting a group assessment instead of the final essay was less successful. I thought that this may have encouraged stronger group dynamics during the field school; however, it appeared that when students returned home they had such passionate, individualised ideas that they wanted to express, that groups often struggled with satisfactory synergy. One year, I required groups to produce an exhibition proposal where students could contribute their own disciplinary skills but reach consensus on exhibition theme, selection of works, politics of display, et cetera. Limited classes post-trip did not help this issue; given that field schools are essentially an intensive run outside of scheduled classes, the extra classes are difficult to include.

Diversifying field experiences

After seven years, it became necessary to cease our Bula’bula field school. This was very sad for all concerned. Different management approaches at the art centre, as well as increased travel and accommodation costs, made it impossible to continue. Over the following years, I diversified the field schools considerably, including those from northern Queensland including Girringun Arts in Cardwell. In 2016, the first field school was held at Ikuntji Arts in Ikuntji (Haasts Bluff), 230 kilometres west of Alice Springs. Three field schools occurred annually at Ikuntji prior to the COVID-19 pandemic onset. In 2023, we ran our first post-COVID field school at Jilamara Aboriginal Arts and Crafts in the Tiwi Islands, 80 kilometres north of Darwin. The rainforest, desert and island contexts of art, as opposed to Arnhem Land’s wetland context, all brought new learning activities, different stories and very different kinds of art centres. Each field school had to adapt to these differences. For instance, weaving is not a mainstay of Ikuntji Arts so, instead of weaving workshops, students went on maku (witchetty grub collecting, cooking and eating) excursions. The maku story is an important cultural story of Luritja and many other desert peoples, and knowing where, when and how to find edible maku is a fundamental aspect of survival knowledge in the desert. Many paintings in the area are thus about maku. Finding and digging for maku in the midday sun of late September (when mid-semester break occurs) involves one of the most outstanding work ethics I have ever experienced. If not for peanut butter sandwiches, many of us would have gone hungry. But, again, the slow process of learning about people, Country and relationships that occurred during these workshops was equal to that of the weaving workshops.

This concept of a process involving slow learning, and where learning occurred without awareness of learning, urged me to include it more into the Australia Pacific Indigenous Arts course that did not involve field schools as such. Sonja Carmichael agreed to run weaving workshops for a day-long field school for our class on Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island), 30 kilometres south-east of Meanjin, using the ungaire (water reed) fibres and techniques of traditional Quandamooka weaving. Along with this weaving workshop, students went on the Goompi Trail guided tour with Quandamooka man Matthew Burns. This oriented students into flora and fauna important to Quandamooka culture, as well as the cultural and socio-political orientation of the Quandamooka Nation and peoples. A further learning activity involved a visit to the Quandamooka material held at the Dunwich historical museum on Minjerribah, where curators supplemented Matthew’s historical account with examples of t‑shirts and posters used by the Australian chapter of the Black Panthers, led by Sam Watson (mentioned in the Acknowledgements) and Denis Walker, the son of legendary Quandamooka poet, activist and artist Oodgeroo Noonuccal (formerly known as Kath Walker).

Further opportunities for learning on Country were included in this latter course by walking a few steps from the door to the building where lectures occurred. For this on-campus learning on Country activity, I invited Dylan Sarra, a Brisbane-based Indigenous artist, to speak about the rock art on boulders relocated to the UQ campus that originated from his Gooreng Gooreng traditional homelands near Bundaberg, 360 kilometres north of Brisbane. Sarra’s contemporary art includes rubbings of the rock art from these removed boulders to support his and his community’s efforts to repatriate the rocks to their homeland. Students were less than two metres from the building housing Art History, but this was still a form of learning on Country.

Relationships, respect and remuneration

The last, but possibly most emphatic, point I want to make is that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who teach our students, and who support learning on Country, must be properly remunerated for their time. Remuneration is an often poorly articulated aspect of the language of such relationships (Bunda et al., 2023; Janke, 2022). All of the costs to pay for workshops, trips, travel, talks, demonstrations, et cetera were carefully worked out in consultation with the art centre manager prior to opening the course for enrolments. Even so, this was not a foolproof method, because occasionally there was confusion or disagreement within the community about who should or should not be involved in these teaching activities. However, showing respect for the fact that communities are not homogenous simply because they are Indigenous, and that they incorporate differing opinions as a natural course of social exchange, is extremely important in these instances. I always included a surplus kitty in case of unexpected extra requirements (which involved teachers occasionally, and more often, undertaking puncture repair, purchasing tarpaulins and, on one occasion, bribing a pilot to taxi his plane to the other end of the runway where our 4WDs were waiting). Needless to say, the expense acquittal with Finance was always interesting.

The field schools and learning on Country experiences do not fit the standard mold of university teaching, and nor should they. They are driven by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives relevant to the people and their Country who host our classes. Field school convenors, no matter whether the field schools are held in remote Australian communities, Venice, Fiji or New York, all seem to band together about the front line of being oddities who don’t seem to adhere to standard teaching procedures. To this end, I found myself developing relationships with like-minded staff who understood, valued and supported the anomalies of learning on Country. They always seemed to find a way to make the system fit our requirements, rather than the other way round. It often seems much more difficult to convene field schools rather than standard courses, and it is. However, field schools are invaluable to students’ academic education and to their moral and ethical development, as well as being an introduction to an important aspect of lifelong learning. Communities, in turn, expressed appreciation for how we obviously valued their culture and knowledge, and also, by bringing young people to the community who are learning at universities, we provided role models for the education pathways of their own youth. Community members often flocked to our group on arrival so that their children could “hang out” with university students and see how they were just like them. It is a very small aspect of giving back to the community, but it does matter. There is an economy of faith that develops between knowledge providers in this instance – between Indigenous peoples and communities, and universities. It matters. This is where the Truth principle of the Green Paper makes its most emphatic impact; “truth” is not so much said as enacted and experienced in the field schools, and, quite frankly, no words could replace this kind of Truth.

Next steps

I have retired from teaching at UQ and feel privileged to have been afforded opportunities by UQ, the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the School of Communication and Arts to conduct these field schools. My role will be held by an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander art history lecturer who will bring an entirely new dimension of Indigenous perspectives to our field schools and learning on Country, and I am so excited for our future students.