Michael Nelson Jagamara (c. 1945–2020) (artist), Warlpiri people, with William McIntosh (stone consultant), Aldo Rossi (1919–91) (stonemason), Franco Colussi, (b. 1938) (stonemason), Forecourt mosaic pavement, 1986–1987, Art/Craft Program, Parliament House Art Collection, Department of Parliamentary Services, Canberra, ACT. © Estate of the artist licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency Ltd. Image courtesy of the Department of Parliamentary Services, Canberra, ACT.
Cultural warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are advised that the following contains the names, images and voices of people who are deceased.
Centre-most in the Forecourt of Parliament House is the mosaic pavement designed by Warlpiri artist Michael Nelson Jagamara AM (also spelt Tjakamarra or Jakamara). It is a significant symbolic reminder, at the heart of Australia’s democracy, of the over 65,000 years of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ presence in this country.
Completed in 1987, just prior to the opening of the new Parliament House, the mosaic measures 196 metres square and is surrounded by a ceremonial pool of water, referencing Australia as a land surrounded by sea.
Forecourt of Parliament House. Courtesy and © Brenton McGeachie Photography.
At the 1988 opening ceremony of Parliament House, Jagamara stood beside Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Robert (Bob) Hawke as he explained to them the story of the mosaic’s design.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Prime Minister Robert (Bob) Hawke, Michael Nelson Jagamara, Prince Philip, the artist’s son Jonathan Nelson, and Hazel Hawke listening to Mr Jagamara explain the Forecourt mosaic artwork. Parliament House Construction Authority stone consultant Bill McIntosh and his wife are on the far right, 9 May 1988. Courtesy of the National Archives of Australia (A6135, K19/5/88/20).
This work represents a Western Desert Dreaming. As a contemporary interpretation of cultural sand paintings, it has complex layers of meaning known only to the Warlpiri Elders. Jagamara later said of his design:
My painting for the mosaic in the forecourt of Parliament House represent all the indigenous people in this land, the wider Australia. That’s why I put all the different animals – represent to me all the peoples – emus, kangaroos, possums – at this place. The circle in the middle is one of my Dreamings, a place back home. But it also stand for this place where all the Aboriginal people come and meet together, just like we do in our ceremony, to discuss and work together ...1
In September 1993, Jagamara joined some 600 other Indigenous Australians as they marched together to Parliament House to protest the Government’s proposed response to the Mabo decision.2 Using a hammer and chisel, he symbolically ‘removed’ a stone from the centre of the mosaic as a protest,3 warning that it would be removed in its entirety if the legislation proceeded as proposed,
A lot of white people, you don’t seem to understand … They look at my work, all they see is a pretty painting, a pretty picture. That’s … why they asked me to come to Canberra and explain this forecourt mosaic to help people understand that it means so much … [more] than the pretty painting.
You’re the white people took this country from us. You must recognise, you must recognise Aboriginal people have our own culture, our Dreamtime, ceremonies, place where we held our corroborees for our Dreaming, dreaming stories … It is what my paintings are about..
White people must understand that this land is Aboriginal peoples’ homeland, we are still here keeping the laws of the Dreaming. We want to keep our culture strongly for our children’s children. We cannot do this without our land because it is our life, that Dreaming, the story, the paintings, our culture, it is all tied to our land. This has all been changed. This is no longer a meeting place for all Aboriginal people … The government of Australia are still not recognising our people and our culture. It is abusing my painting and insulting my people. It make my people sad that government does not respect my painting and my people. I want to take my painting back to my people... If this government does not listen to Aboriginal people then … we will take the paintings home.4
His action "galvanised deadlocked negotiators into compromise and within days the historic Native Title legislation was the law of the land. Aboriginal Affairs Minister Robert Tickner confirmed to the media that the artist’s perfectly timed intervention had ‘turned the whole debate around’".5
As evident from this this historic photograph of nine of the 11 Indigenous Australians in the 47th Parliament, the Forecourt mosaic pavement continues to serve as a profound reminder of the deep and enduring connection between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their Country and their ancient and continuous contribution to Australia’s culture and national identity.
(L–R): Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Dr Gordon Reid MP, Senator Jana Stewart, Senator Kerrynne Liddle, Senator Malarndiri McCarthy, the Hon Linda Burney MP, Senator Patrick Dodson, Senator Dorinda Cox and Senator Jacqui Lambie. Photograph by Mike Bowers, Guardian Australia.
The Forecourt mosaic commission
Integral to Mitchell/Giurgola & Thorp Architects’ (MGT) design for Parliament House were commissions to more than 85 Australian artists and craftspeople for over 70 works of art and craft for specific locations or uses in the building and its precincts. These included coats of arms, sculpture, tapestries, marquetry, paintings, prints, ceramic and glass friezes, furniture for major spaces and special suites, and the Forecourt mosaic pavement.6
In 1983, MGT described the design intent of the mosaic as being in part to express:
… the sense of the collective wisdom of the Aboriginal cultures … that Aboriginal presence in the forecourt: the wisdom and values of a culture which lived in harmony with the land, rather than imposing itself upon the land.7
In 1985 five artists were nominated by the Papunya Tula Artists Cooperative in central Australia and were invited to submit designs. They were:
• Michael Nelson Jagamara AM (c. 1945–2020), Warlpiri people
• Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri AO (c. 1932–2002), Anmatyerre people
• Paddy Carroll Tjungurrayi (c. 1927–2002), Warlpiri people8
• Two Bob Tjungurrayi (c. 1938–2000), Warlpiri people,9 and
• Maxie Tjampitjinpa (c. 1945–97), Warlpiri people.10
The artists flew to Canberra for an onsite design orientation. They were each contracted to produce a 1.4 square metre design in a designated colour palette which corresponded to available stone and mortar colours. However, in a spirit of great generosity, each submitted two site-specific designs which are now held in the Parliament House Art Collection.
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (c. 1932–2002), Untitled, 1985, Art/Craft Program, Parliament House Art Collection.
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (c. 1932–2002), Untitled, 1985, Art/Craft Program, Parliament House Art Collection.
Paddy Carroll Tjungurrayi (c. 1927–2002), Untitled, 1985, Art/Craft Program, Parliament House Art Collection.
Paddy Carroll Tjungurrayi (c. 1927–2002), Untitled, 1985, Art/Craft Program, Parliament House Art Collection.
Two Bob Tjungurrayi (c. 1938–2000), Two Brothers at Yarripalangu, 1985, Art/Craft Program, Parliament House Art Collection.
Two Bob Tjungurrayi (c. 1938–2000), The Maliyarra ceremony hairbelt, 1985, Parliament House Art/Craft Program, Parliament House Art Collection.
Maxie Tjampitjinpa (c. 1945–97), Flying Ants at Willowra and Wantunguru, 1985, Art/Craft Program, Parliament House Art Collection.
Maxie Tjampitjinpa (c. 1945–1997), Flying Ant Dreaming, Art/Craft Program, Parliament House Art Collection.
Michael Nelson Jagamara (c. 1945–2020), Flying Ant Dreaming at Yiwintji, 1985, Art/Craft Program, Parliament House Art Collection.
Michael Nelson Jagamara (c. 1945–2020), Possum and Wallaby Dreaming, 1985, Art/Craft Program, Parliament House Art Collection.
Jagamara’s work known as Possum and Wallaby Dreaming was subsequently selected as the design for the mosaic by the Parliament House Construction Authority’s Art Advisory Committee.
The Forecourt mosaic’s construction
Jagamara’s design was translated into stone by specialist stone consultant William McIntosh and mosaicists Franco Colussi and Aldo Rossi, working in close coordination with the architects.
A 1:1 scale drawing of Jagamara’s design was produced by taking 35mm slide images within each quadrant of a string grid placed across the design, followed by the projection of the slide images against a paper-covered wall at the exact scale of the mosaic pavement. Each painted dot in the projection was hand-traced onto the paper and labelled with its colour, already correlated by the artist to a species of granite. Special stone guillotines were used to hand-cut some 90,000 individual granite setts ranging from 45–60 mm in diameter. These were glued to the paper which was then cut into sections and shipped to the site for installation.11
Consultation with Jagamara continued throughout this process in Papunya, in the fabricators’ Sydney workshop and on site to ensure that the integrity of his design was maintained.
Michael Nelson Jagamara, MGT Art/Craft Coordinator Pamille Berg, staff of the Aboriginal Artists Agency, and community members at the artist’s house in Papunya, discussing the translation of his design for the Forecourt mosaic pavement. Courtesy of Mitchell/Giurgola & Thorp Architects.
Franco Colussi, Aldo Rossi, Bill McIntosh and MGT staff viewing the weather testing prototype of setts and mortar on site. Courtesy of Mitchell/Giurgola & Thorp Architects.
Installation of the mosaic took around five months, with two to four square metres of pavement completed each day. Pamille Berg, former MGT Partner, reflected that:
In its completed form the Mosaic Pavement required more than five years of painstaking work by the artist, architects, mosaicists, technical consultants, construction managers, commission coordinators, administrators, and others. This precious pavement is clearly an essential part of the overall design and finishes of the Forecourt of the Parliament ...12
Michael Nelson Jagamara
Michael Nelson Jagamara AM (c. 1945–2020) was a Warlpiri Elder from the Northern Territory. He was born at Pikilyi (Vaughan Springs) in the Northern Territory, and grew up under the teachings of his father. Jagamara was one of the foremost proponents of the Western Desert art movement and joined the Papunya Tula collective of artists in 1983.
In 1984, Jagamara won the inaugural National Aboriginal Art Award (now the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards). He gained international renown with commissioned works for the Sydney Opera House (1987) and the Forecourt of Parliament House. He was represented as an individual artist in the Biennale of Sydney (1986) and his work toured the USA with the exhibition ‘Dreamings: the art of Aboriginal Australia’ (1988).
Jagamara was the president of the Papunya Community Council in the 1990s, and again in 2002–04, and was a central figure at the Papunya Tjupi Arts Centre, established in 2007. He was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia (1993) for his services to art, and he received an honorary doctorate from the University of NSW (2008).
References
1. MN Jagamara, speech outside Parliament House, Canberra, 27 September 1993, ABC Archives.
2. J Gardiner-Garden, ‘The Mabo debate – a chronology’, Background Paper number 23 1993, Parliamentary Library, October 1993, p. 35.
3. R Hawes, T Stevens and AAP, ‘Artist digs up his parliamentary mosaic in Mabo protest’, The Australian, 28 September 1993. See also P Chamberlin, ‘Aborigines protest at Govt’s haste on Mabo’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 September 1993.
4. MN Jagamara, speech outside Parliament House, op. cit.
5. V Johnson, ‘Obituary: Michael Jagamara Nelson (c. 1947–2020) “Without the story the painting is nothing", Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, vol. 21, issue 2, 2021, 304–08.
6. Information in this section is taken from MP Berg, Interwoven: the commissioned art and craft for Parliament House, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 2018, pp. 42–49.
7. Ibid., p. 42.
8. Biographical information: Vivien Johnson, Aboriginal Artists of the Western Desert, A Biographical Dictionary, Craftsman House, 1994, p. 75.
9. Ibid, pp. 196–97.
10. Biographical information: Kleinert & Neale, The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 718–19.
11. Berg, op. cit., pp. 44–47.
12. Ibid, p. 47.