Arrival 2011

Artist Garth Lena (1967)

Date2011

Object number00054526

NameSculpture

MediumSteel and wood

DimensionsOverall: 510 × 337 × 360 mm
Overall (Boat): 80 × 75 × 290 mm

ClassificationsArt

Credit LineANMM Collection Purchased with funds from the Sid Faithfull and Christine Sadler program supporting Contemporary Indigenous Maritime Heritage in Far North Queensland and the Torres Strait Islands through the ANMM Foundation

Terms

DescriptionSteel and wood sculpture titled 'Arrival 2011' by Garth Lena. This work presents a group of Aboriginal people who have returned to camp after a day’s hunting and gathering, laden with fish to share and assembled together to exchange stories. The boat in their midst is logged within dark curved forms suggesting mangrove roots at the water’s edge. On one level the work suggests a lively communal culture sustained by the land and the community’s custodianship of it. Viewed within the context of Cooks 1770 voyage, the title 'Arrival 2011' suggests the incursion of something new and foreign into this contained world. HistoryEast Coast Encounter was a multi-arts initiative involving Australian Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists, writers and songwriters to re-imagine the encounter by Lieutenant James Cook and his crew with Indigenous people in 1770. Cook's voyage along the Australian east coast has become central to national historical narratives. The East Coast Encounter project asked artists to re-envisage this seminal journey by imaginatively exploring moments of contact between two world views during these encounters. It also brought these events into the present by incorporating artists' reflections on their relevance today, and their responses to visits to significant contact locations. Topics such as encounter, impact, differing perspectives, nature and culture and views of country are investigated. In Garth Lena's work 'Arrival 2011' a lively, communal culture is shown, sustained by the land and the community’s custodianship of it. Lena conveys the idea of watercraft as carrying culture and change, as the group members quietly consider what this arrival might mean for their people. SignificanceThis sculpture by Garth Lena is significant in providing an Indigenous view of first contact and European occupation of Australia.