The Witchdoctor and the Windmill

Until recently, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history of art had been under-represented in the public sphere. As Franchesca Cubillo, Senior Curator Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art at the National Gallery of Australia puts it, Linda Syddick has a life experience that very few of us would come to know or understand. This film is a cross-cultural project which brings Linda’s art and life story to that public space by giving voice to those who experienced lives affected by family separation, geographic and cultural displacement and trauma. “The Witchdoctor and the Windmill” demonstrates the importance to the national narrative, of documenting and negotiating liminal moments from the era of early European incursions into Pintupi country. It is also an exercise in ‘truth telling’, which reveals the diverse events which took Linda’s art from the painting sheds of Alice Springs to the Musée du quai Branly.

The film will initiate interest, promote awareness, and enliven curiosity to achieve a better-informed public. Linda’s art and stories of traditional life on Pintupi homelands and the coming in period hold powerful personal meanings for individuals, families, and communities across all sides of the inter-cultural frontier. By engaging audiences emotionally with Linda’s story we seek to provoke a dialogue with a more nuanced understanding of the incorporation of these events in the Dreaming.

We are acutely aware of the importance of recording and preserving Linda's stories in language and others with intimate first-hand knowledge of this period while we still can. We will discuss with ACARA what works, so we can provide useful TAL resources on an iterative basis. Our focus is also on having this film accepted in Australian and global film festivals. This story should attract national interest through its incorporation as a learning resource across multiple KLAs in secondary schools within the revised national curriculum framework developed by the ACARA. Study within schools and school communities will initiate and promote ongoing discussion and application of the underlying importance of the two-toolbox approach for co-producing knowledge and understanding of the issues. Longer-term outcomes include broader and better-informed debate so audiences from all walks of life will have an active role as contributors to a national and global discourse.

The film is at completion stage as an independent film rather than a sponsored work.
We have productive relationships with family and colleagues who have supported the project. We enjoy ongoing relations and have consulted with: the National Association for the Visual Arts and Australia Council, National Gallery of Australia; Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies; Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority; Central Land Council, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory; Ikuntji Artists and Japingka Gallery. Formal legal support is via Frankel Lawyers & Terri Janke & Company. All parties have assisted us with counsel, expertise, some in-kind resources, and encouragement to create a film that will enable audiences to experience, engage with, and be transformed by Linda’s art and life story, and contribute to the [re]shaping of the national narrative.

The film will invite and encourage collaboration between generations to share their art, music, and stories and draw inspiration and confidence from each other. It is hoped that audiences will be stimulated to ask questions and not accept the answers uncritically. They may explore, revisit, and examine more closely the policies, events, and testimonies of contested areas of the colonial encounter and coming in period within the framework of this work of living history. It is hoped audiences will feel confident to discuss the film with others and be alerted to and curious about the two-toolbox approach for co-producing knowledge and understanding so they accept their agency and advocacy has an impact on relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Audiences may wish to take direct action in support of advancing the causes and case for the recognition of Indigenous Knowledge Systems and truth telling.

We anticipate longevity for the film in the public space and in education markets particularly uptake in the Australian secondary and tertiary sectors. We will have succeeded when the film reaches a global audience through education, film festivals, event-based screenings, and online platforms and continues to attract screenings into the future. We hope the film promotes further research and study and that Linda’s unconventional methods as an artist will inspire others to follow their own voice and venture into the world to teach and learn and give back to the people and communities they encounter, as Linda has. Throughout our social media campaign, via Streem Media Monitoring, we will measure success metrics such as awareness and attitudinal shifts by content analyses of social media, in community screenings and through attention devoted to the film's issues in the mainstream media in Australia and other nations and make modifications to reach exposure to the widest possible audience.