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Customary Assets and Contemporary Artistry: Multimodal Learning and Remote Economic Participation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Judith Lovell
Judith Lovell*
Affiliation:
Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation, Northern Institute, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
*
address for correspondence: Judith Lovell, Senior Research Fellow, Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation Northern Institute, Charles Darwin University. Address: PO Box 3595 Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australian0871. Email: judith.lovell@cdu.edu.au
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Abstract

The role of artistry in transformative maintenance of law and custom is a theme widely researched and discussed in Aboriginal arts related literature. However, it is the aim of this paper to contribute to a wider discourse about learning and economic participation in remote Australia, and in particular the role of multimodality as a significant asset. The paper draws from relevant literature and two case studies; one from Keringke Arts, and one from Eastern Arrernte teacher and artist, Kathleen Kemarre Wallace. In customary form, multimodality combines and recombines various modalities — including dance, song, sand drawing, body painting and design, storytelling, stories, rhythm, petroglyph and ochre-painted rock art — enabling the intergenerational teaching and learning of rich cultural heritage in ways which connect that experience to the law and custom of the homelands. Multimodality, as it is used in this paper, draws on the concept of ‘form-relationality’; the way various modalities are combined and recombined, as elements which together describe a body of knowledge and yet separately provide myriad detail. Although beyond the scope of this paper, multimodality is also a mediating influence between contemporary and customary elements and contexts. This paper considers the complexity of multimodality as an asset in a contemporary arts market.

Keywords

multimodalremote economic participationteaching and learning
Type
Research Article
Information
The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education , Volume 44 , Issue 2: Red Dirt Revisited: Examining remote learning and education experiences , December 2015 , pp. 184 - 193
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2015 

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