Songlines: Australia's Book of Genesis

The Ancients

History Hit

History

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 12 December 2021

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What the Book of Genesis is to the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament, songlines are to Indigenous Australians. Epic tales of desire, pursuit, shape-shifting spirits, strength and family ties, these are stories of the land, communicated only by a handful of elders. Today, Tristan is joined by Margo Neale, lead of the "Songlines: Tracking The Seven Sisters" exhibition, which is making its European debut at The Box in Plymouth till February 2022. Not only is this an art exhibition, but also a science and history exhibition, encouraging people to engage with stories that are thousands of years old and that tell us how to look after ourselves and the planet.

If you’re enjoying this podcast and looking for more fascinating Ancient content, then subscribe to our Ancient History Thursday newsletter here.

Music:

Earth Awakens - Jon Bjork

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes your host and in today's podcast
0:15.4	will I am really looking forward to sharing this episode with you. We're talking once
0:21.0	again about indigenous Australia. We're talking about a creation story that has been described
0:27.4	as Australia's Book of Genesis. It's an epic saga, an epic story, the Australian Iliad,
0:35.1	the Australian Odyssey, all of that. It's remarkable. And it's all to do with a new exhibition
0:42.0	that is currently on in Plymouth at the box called Songlines, Tracking the Seven Sisters.
0:49.6	Now it's the Seven Sisters story, the Seven Sisters Songlines, which is the focus of
0:55.4	this great creation epic story of indigenous Australia. And talk through it, or talk through
1:01.7	the exhibition and why this story is so remarkable, so significant for the oldest continuous
1:09.0	living culture on earth. I was delighted a few weeks back to head over to a hotel in London
1:15.6	to interview one of the curators of this new exhibition, Margot Neal. Margot, she was
1:21.1	over from Australia for this exhibition. She was absolutely fantastic to chat to. She is
1:27.2	a great personality. I really do hope you enjoy this podcast. It was so much fun to record.
1:33.2	And without further ado, to talk all about Songlines and Tracking the Seven Sisters, here's
1:39.6	Margot. Margot, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.
1:45.0	It's absolutely my pleasure. This exhibition, Songlines. This is groundbreaking. This
1:51.0	is unlike any exhibitions that I can think of that we've had in the UK before. Well, yes,
1:56.9	this is what they all say, and I can only believe them. It was groundbreaking in Australia,
2:01.9	too. Of course, we have Aboriginal art. It's very prominent, Aboriginal issues, politics.
2:06.1	It's more prominent. Well, you get the Aboriginal exhibition about treaty or referendum or sovereignty
2:14.4	or something, a more political nature. In the sort of visual mode, you get Aboriginal art,
2:19.9	and it says this sort of almost, in my view, a cultural cringe where it's going to be bigger
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Hit, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Hit and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.