Dreamtime - sand sculpture

The Australian Aboriginals are an amazingly interesting race and culture. Much about them we do not know as their history was only passed down by word of mouth to those they saw worthy. So for me to say I know anything about them or their culture is a lie.

While researching this post I went down a rabbit hole trying to understand this sculpture I made along with Niall Magee and Fergus Mulvany. We were given the continent of Australia and in particular the aboriginal culture to make on this project in Travenmunde, Germany. The whole sculpture park was divided into different continents and we were given the one we knew most little about.

Didgerido

For the main area we wanted to go a bit trippy, tying in with the idea of dreamtime, at least as we saw it. There is some information that the Elders would smoke Pituri leaves mixed with wood ash which would send them into a Hallucinogenic state. We figured that this is how they would have entered Dreamtime. Again, this is all supposition on my part as the most I know about these things is what I learned from watching 'Crocodile Dundee' and 'Home and away' so, my apologies to all my Aboriginal readers.

In the sculpture we had two lads sitting by a fire breathing in the smoke. While one is taking his first hit the other is sailing off into Dreamtime.
I wanted to carve a special effect to represent this happening as the mind of the character drifted away, like some kind of trailbacks. The many faces become less focused as they did so.

It was a fun experiment which i think really worked and would spawn a lot of ideas for other sculptures which you will see coming up in my blog. (Note to self(I like the idea of doing an out of focus sculpture, should try it more))

Digeridon't

The tripping guy traveled off into the background where he finally went down a plug hole going clockwise due to the Coriolis effect. (That's one for you science buffs).The plug stopper was just a fun little element to point out this fact.
We also used another coloured sand we found around the area to do some primate drawings on one surface to sell the idea that we were actually talking about Aborigines and not what we would get up to in the evenings after work.

When we finished this scene we populated the areas around with various elements of people and animals. I made this breast feed woman and baby. (I hope you are not easily offended by nudity, if so grow up)
You can really see how course the sand was and in the beautiful weather we had that year it was difficult to work with it.
I some ways i really like the rough texture, I think it adds to the character of the piece.

---

Lessons learned

Below is a very interesting conversation from the comments section of this post. I think it is important to add this info to the post.

@leoplaw 3 days ago
Having met and talked with Aboriginal people from various areas of Eastern Australia, and then from written sources, you have to keep something in mind.

There were hundreds of different nations, with different cultures and languages, just as with indigenous Americans. It is not possible to make blanket statements about cultural activities. For instance didgeridoos were only found in the far North of Australia. Didgeridoo is not even the proper name used by the people who played them.

Australia itself is larger than Europe and has extremes of climate and environment, dictating the lives of Indigenous Australians. Thus plant or animal resources were not the same over the land.

Culturally, knowledge was only passed onto those who had the right to it, through family lines or initiation, let alone it being shared with outsiders such as European settlers. This knowledge, the Law, was strictly controlled and guarded, with transgressions often being punished with spearings or death.

Dreamtime was not a psychedelic state. Dreamtime (also dream time, dream-time) is a term devised by early anthropologists to refer to a religio-cultural worldview attributed to Australian Aboriginal beliefs. The Dreaming is used to represent Aboriginal concepts of "time out of time," or "everywhen," during which the land was inhabited by ancestral figures, often of heroic proportions or with supernatural abilities. ...t has been argued that it is based on a misunderstanding or mistranslation. William Stanner remarked: "why the blackfellow thinks of 'dreaming' as the nearest equivalent in English is a puzzle".[1] Some scholars suggest that the word's meaning is closer to "eternal, uncreated."[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamtime

Following is a link to answer to the question of Indigenous use of psychedelic substances from a person of Aboriginal descent.

http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?/topic/13814-use-of-psychedelics-in-australian-aborignial-cultures/&do=findComment&comment=127771

---

@ammonite 3 days ago
Thank you for all that information, As I said this piece is from our own imaginings. I had read somewhere about the use of Pituri by some tribes and with the piece used that to form our interpretation knowing full-well it was far from the truth.
With these kind of project the process of the sculpture happens so fast you just need to make something quickly and mostly it is just fun, especially in those days. now I try to be a bit more measured in my work.

---

@leoplaw 2 days ago
I understand there is much misinformation and romanticising of cultures foreign to us. Similar things are done for instance to Indigenous Americans, both North and South. So, if you've had no direct contact with said people, how are you to know any better.

But having spent a little time talking with indigenous Australians, I know what a hot topic it is. Foreigners (Europeans) invaded their lands, forceably and unintentionally through disease wiped out large portions of their population. Then those who survived were removed from their lands, people, families, culture and language. You then get the more foreigners making up fanciful interpretations of the shreds left of their culture, naturally they're quite upset.

Further on the topic of the Pituri, everything I have thus read on the topic indicates that the active chemical substance is a nicotine compound. So, if ever you've smoked tobacco yourself, other than a bit of light-headedness, it has no psychoactive properties. It appears that from all available European records it was used as stimulant to help them with strenuous activities, such as long treks through the bush or desert. It is to be noted, that the particular tribes who engaged in its use were wiped out and there is no known surviving cultural knowledge. Further, as I pointed out in my previous comment, such knowledge of Pituri was for the privileged few (initiated), most notably old men. Europeans while they did note the use and effects of the plant, did not bother to ask what it meant for Aboriginal people, whether there was any sacred or spiritual aspect to it's use. So anything that you read today about their use of it is pure speculation or pure fantasy.

This quite detailed article on the topic is a tantalising glimpse of its use.

https://prehistoricdrugs.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/the-aboriginal-drug-pituri-2/

The previous link I provided, also gives a first hand perspective on the general indigenous attitudes towards traditional cultural use of psychedelics. It is to be noted, that there is a dearth of information of such use by these people, either because it was sacred and closely guarded secret that died out with the people, or as the commentator of the above link puts it, their ceremonies were "family orientated" affairs, where rhythmic dancing and singing was used to induce trance like states.

An excellent research resource of all things chemical and plant based that affect human consciousness can be found at Erowid.org.

I hope you understand, my intent is to inform and not attack you. I still love your creativity and work.

---

@ammonite a minute ago
Wow @leoplaw, thank you so much for taking the time to give such an in-depth explanation. I understand that this is not an attack and is something I really hoped for, to learn more about their cultures. I do feel however that me making this piece can very easily be taken as a sign of disrespect to them especially as they have faced so much at the hands of western colonisation . I assure you and all readers that this is not the case. I was just trying to learn and understand more and I don't want my work to add to their difficulties , I am happy that due to the ephemerality of sand this piece is no more and that with this post we came to talk about why it could be offensive.This is a good lesson for me to be more careful in how I research and make my sculptures, so, Thank you again.

I hope you don't mind that I add this comment thread to the main post as I think it is very valuable and adds to the documentation of the piece.

---

Ps

Thanks for reading. I use Steem to document my work as an ephemeral Sculptor of sand, snow and ice, among other things. This will hopefully give it a new life on the Steem blockchain. Below you will find some of my recent posts.

Thorny Vines - ice sculpture

4D Train (Remastered - sand sculpture

The black death - sand sculpture

I hope you'll join me again soon.

@ammonite
[//]:# (!steemitworldmap 53.958384 lat 10.884787 long Dreamtime -sand sculpture 2003 d3scr)