Aboriginal Language in Code on Face Masks
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| Wandjina by Anu Bandjilam |
Anu Bandjilam talks about her art history findings which she published on new masks, greeting cards and gifts collection and the amazing stories behind her art…
“I caught the flu New Years Eve while working at an artists’ party in San Francisco. I was sick in bed for three days, but isolated and got over it. It is what you do when you have the flu.
When the COVID news started before lockdown I made masks for myself and friends. I use high end fashion construction for which I trained in Melbourne, Australia. I used Native Australian print fabric from the local Mendels art supply shop in Haight Ashbury, San Francisco.
When masks became mandatory, the fabric with those prints sold out. When I looked online for more fabric I saw many people making masks with the same fabric. So I used my knowledge of growing up with Aboriginal symbols and story telling to make original art.
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| Sea Goddesses by Anu Bandjilam |
In my art I write stories in pictures. Aboriginal pictorial language stories, combing research of ancient symbols and Native Australian culture and fine art. Language is not only written in words. In art school in London, I was told “If you can write, you can draw.” The same as if you can draw you can write.
We know from Egyptian hieroglyphs, not all writing or information is in words. Some information is recorded in pictures. The more ancient the writing, the more pictures. The more pictures, the more information one picture represents. The primitive images we find on cave walls of pre-history settlements are not just pictures. They are a form of writing that records history.
The picture history system works alongside spoken history as a memory trigger. We know how European art reminds us of events we learn in history books. Ancient and tribal art does the same. An example is if we see an image of Isis from Egypt. We are reminded of the historical Cleopatra. Plus her secret marriages to Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony and the wars they caused. A generation of political history in one image.
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| Rainbow Serpent by Anu Bandjilam |
Native Australian art records events and even lost races in a beautiful way. A modular symbol system alike to Egyptian Hieroglyphs. Some examples are half circles represent people and different kinds of animal tracks represent different kinds of animals. Circles within circles represent water holes. In a creative sense, Aboriginal art is both ancient and modern art at the same time. An ideal inspiration for design.
There are some Australian Aboriginal symbols that are universal around the world. They have the same concepts and meanings as each other, which scraps current history books. This is because it is one thing to have the same symbol. It is a bunch of other things to have the same symbol with the same meanings and the same multiple concepts.
The stories each sound a bit different, but origins are the same. Aboriginal art history proves that there was a global sea faring culture. They also settled in each place long enough for their belief systems and symbols to be adopted by locals.
The art of different cultures tells us much more about ancient cultures than history books. This is because when those books were written we didn’t have modern technology and search engines. Anu Bandjilam“