Djon Mundine

Djon Mundine

Artist, Curator, Activist and Writer, Australia

In 1979, Bundjalung man Djon Mundine moved to a little island in Arnhem Land called Milingimbi, where he joined the arts centre as an adviser.

Roughly 600 people lived on the island, and he was amazed to discover that the locals had a remarkable skill: They could identify each other's footprints on sight.

"By looking at their footprint, they could tell who that was — 'That's Jim', or 'Delphine has just been here'," Mundine tells ABC Arts.

Prints and stencils of hands and feet have featured prominently in Aboriginal visual language for thousands of years: In the Red Hands Cave in the Blue Mountains, a collage of handprints and stencils adorn a rock wall. The red, yellow and white ochre prints are believed to be between 500 and 1,600 years old.

In 2003, archaeologists discovered ancient footprints at Willandra Lakes in south-western New South Wales.

Mundine, who won the Red Ochre Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts in 2020, calls on this rich cultural history in Always Was, Always Will Be — a performance work in which he leaves a red ochre print of his body on a wall.