Contextualized Australian Aboriginal Art

In my 10/10/10 post, I mentioned the theology in the book Rainbow Spirit Theology: Toward an Australian Aboriginal Theology, and the artwork in The Rainbow Spirit in Creation.  In today's post, I'd like to explore Australian Aboriginal art further and one example of contextualizing it. The concept of art in traditional Australian Aboriginal society is very different to the concept of art in European society. In traditional Aboriginal societies, activities like dancing, singing, body decorations, sand drawings, making implements or weaving baskets were not considered to be separate activities called art and design. All of these activities were a part of the Dreaming (or Dreamtime) and a part of normal daily life. There was no concept of a special type of person, artists, because, in a sense, everyone was an artist. This is changing as tradition-oriented communities adapt to aspects of western culture although the number of ‘artists’ in any Aboriginal group would generally be far greater than in non-Aboriginal communities (for more info see http://aboriginalart.com.au/gallery/gallery_intro.html).

Islamic Calligraphy Exhibition

Just a quick note (forgot to mention it on my 9/28/10 post) about a current exhibition at Emory University in Atlanta: Islamic Calligraphy and the Qur'an | Michael C. Carlos Museum. If you're in the area and interested in Arabic calligraphy as an art form, check it out (I'm going to try).

Christian Identity vs Ethnic Identity | The Lausanne Global Conversation

I recently came across this post at the Lausanne Cape Town 2010 website.  The author (a Christian from India) laments how ethnic conflict is rampant among various groups in northeast India.  He struggles with how to personally respond, and even questions whether he is more motivated by his ethnic identity or by his Christian identity.

Blog Link: Artists and the Global Church

I would encourage you to check out this blog post by W. David O. Taylor about nonwestern artists and the upcoming issue of  Connections, the missions journal of the  World Evangelical Alliance.  It is a 100 page double issue dedicated to arts in missions.  Anyone who is interested in missions and the arts should check it out!