Edutainment > 36 Views of Green Island (8) - Sand Dunes

Sand Dunes
copyright Tom Kristensen, 2005

Tom Kristensen, born 1962, is a young artist from Australia who works in the tradition of Japanese woodblock printmaking. On this page, he writes about his latest print from the series "36 Views of Green Island ".

Here is the original text written by Tom Kristensen. Text and images are copyright protected and may not be used or distributed for other than private use without the prior consignment of the author/artist.

36 Views of Green Island

"These 36 views are presented in the Sosaku Hanga tradition: self-carved and hand printed, using Japanese tools, Japanese mulberry washi and traditional pigment colours. Each print is made from 4 to 6 blocks and printed in an edition of 25 copies."

Sand Dunes - No. 8

"The wind blows from the sea, the sand is picked up from the beach and piled up into dunes. The dunes at the back are the largest and the oldest.

Buried in these back dunes is a history of aboriginal habitation. The sandy hills under Cunjurong Point are littered with bleached shells. The shells and bones and stones that were carried to this spot remained, piled up in huge middens. The island, the river and the bush provided shellfish, fish, seabirds and other animals for countless meals over thousands of years. With plentiful food the people would gather in number and it is likely that they held ritual ceremonies.

Aboriginal beliefs derive from stories about the Dreamtime of creation. The Rainbow Serpent is the creator and protector of the land. The serpent spirit lies in the watercourse, in the bending of the river. Apart from food and ceremony, there was also industry; stones and bones were worked into points.

At nearby Murramarang headland there are traces of activity going back 12.000 years, with production of stone spearheads, knives, scrapers, microliths, hammerstones and axes. Other artefacts like fishhooks were made from bone. The dingo, a native dog, has been given a sandy grave. There are also human remains buried in the midden. All is covered, and sometimes uncovered, by the shifting sand."

Tom Kristensen
April 2005

Video Presentation of Tom Kristensen

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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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