Edutainment > 36 Views of Green Island (20) - Dunes and Fence

Tom Kristensen, born 1962, is a young artist from Australia who works in the tradition of Japanese woodblock prints. On this page he describes his print work 'Dunes and Fence' from the series of '36 Views of Green Island'.

Dunes and Fence - by Tome Kristensen

Tom Kristensen - Biography
Dunes and Fence, 2005
copyright Tom Kristensen

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Dunes and Fence - No. 20

The European approach to land use has been disastrous to the Australian landscape. Land clearing and habitat destruction has left a legacy of extinction and soil degradation. The fence in this view has been erected to prevent people from trampling the fragile vegetation that holds the sandy dunes together.

In 1770 Captain Cook claimed Eastern Australia as dominion land in the name of his sovereign, King George III. Since settlement, rights to use the land have been granted by the Governor as representative of the Crown. To maintain a land claim it is necessary to carry out certain improvements and produce an economic benefit. Aboriginal people were not considered to have a prior claim to the land since they did not assert ownership by building villages, clearing the land and erecting fences. The land had been taken by occupation rather than military conquest and it was considered to be terra nullius, land without owners.

The Aboriginal people

Video - Tom Kristensen

Video Tom Kristensen
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For 40000 years the land has been integral to the spiritual identity of the Aboriginal people. They had no broad scale agriculture but instead relied on a sustainable harvest of the native flora and fauna. They maintained a way of life that did not claim dominion over nature. At the time of settlement there were 500 indigenous nations with distinct languages, legal systems and territories. After settlement the dispossessed Aboriginal people were left stateless, and as late as 1968 they had no citizenship rights and were not counted in the government census.

In 1992 the High Court finally recognised that the indigenous people had been wrongly dispossessed. Native title now allows some land rights to the Aboriginal people.

Tom Kristensen, October 2005
(edited by Dieter Wanczura, updated October 2009)

Video Presentation of Tom Kristensen

We produced a video with a short presentation of Tom Kristensen. Please click on the image or on the link to go to the video page.

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