Explore PRIDE
Peter, Pride and Wild Dogs
By Alise Hardy. Edited by Dominic Guerrera.
Ngarigo artist Peter Waples-Crowe is well known for frequently featuring dingoes in his artworks to highlight the way colonial Australia has marginalised queer First Nations peoples. He describes the dingo as a personal totem, saying ‘in some of the Aboriginal stories across the country the dingo is seen as a shapeshifter. In the day, we see it as a dingo, but at night it can become whatever it wants to be. I've often seen myself as a shapeshifter.’¹
Despite a longstanding belief that pure dingoes (Canis lupus dingo) were virtually extinct from most parts of contemporary Australia, in recent years research has shown this is incorrect.² In South Australia, dingoes still roam freely throughout the northern areas of the state and are treated differently by the law depending on whether they are inside or outside of a fence, known as the Dog Fence.³
The Dog Fence was built in 1946 to protect sheep grazing areas from ‘wild dogs’. Inside (south of) the Dog Fence, dingoes are considered ‘wild dogs’ that are a pest ‘declared for destruction’, whereas outside (north of) the Dog Fence, dingoes are listed as ‘unprotected native wildlife’ that are ‘valued for their cultural and ecological roles’.⁴ In Western Australia, over half (59%) of ‘wild dogs’ are pure dingoes.⁵ In Victoria and New South Wales (NSW), ‘wild dogs’ are nearly 90% and over 60% of pure dingoes, respectively.
‘Wild dogs’ is a term that is used in contemporary Australian government legislation⁶ to mean ‘any dog living in the wild, including feral dogs (Canis lupus familiaris), dingoes (Canis lupus dingo) and their hybrids’.⁷
Dingo comes from the Dharug word dingu, meaning dog; dingo.⁸ Kadli is the Kaurna word for dog; dingo.⁹
The dingo (Canis lupus dingo) has lived across the many First Nations of Australia for 5,000 to 11,000 years. They were widespread across the continent when British colonists arrived in 1788 and were interbred with domestic dogs.¹⁰ Dingoes have since been eradicated through shooting, baiting and trapping in order to protect livestock.
Waples-Crowe depicts the Alpine dingo of the snowy region in Victoria and NSW, including Tumbarumba in southern NSW where he is from. Honouring his totem, Waples-Crowe explores the complexity of queer-Aboriginal identity illuminating his experience as both queer and Ngarigo - describing himself as a ‘marginalised person in a marginalised Mob’.¹¹ The dingo, a disparaged native animal, is aligned with the ‘outcasts of the Aboriginal community – the queer, disabled, homeless, mentally ill and others who live as ‘second class natives’.¹²
‘The dingo is considered a pest — it gets in the way of progress,’ says Waples-Crowe. ‘It’s [the dingo] seen as native but it isn't afforded the same protective status as other pretty natives, like koalas.’¹³
In the same way colonisation has erased important understandings about the dingo, it also introduced religious morals that repressed gay, trans and queer histories in First Nations cultures. This impact contributed to a significant change in the socio-cultural practices of gender and sexual identities within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Negative racist and gendered stereotypes promoted by media about Aboriginal people, men, women and LGBTQIA2+ people also have detrimental effects on employment opportunities, custody decisions and wellbeing.¹⁴ Despite evidence of sexual and gender diversity within First Nations cultures¹⁵, ‘Indigenous homophobia, biphobia and transphobia’¹⁶ are directed to queer Aboriginal people from within and outside of Aboriginal communities.¹⁷
“Everyone assumes us to be heterosexual. Even the way our history is written, they wrote out a lot of the homosexual, queer or trans stuff” says Waples-Crowe.¹⁸
Waples-Crowe’s intersecting experiences as a queer Ngarigo man, artist and also an Aboriginal health worker has given him an intimate and unique perspective about the queer and trans issues that LGBTQI2+ Aboriginal people face. These insights feed into his work as an artist - art and wellbeing are synonymous for Waples-Crowe. He understands that art can be a place of safety for many LGBTQIA2+ Aboriginal young people and injecting humour into his work is one way that Waples-Crowe makes the ongoing implications of Australia’s invasion accessible.
“I’m inside the culture because I’m Aboriginal; I’m outside because I’m queer. I’m inside queer culture because I am queer. I’m outside because I’m Aboriginal” says Waples-Crowe.¹⁹
Ngaya (I Am), a video work by Waples-Crowe exhibited at ACE in PRIDE, he playfully mocks non-Indigenous ideas of Country by layering fragmented images of colonial, Ngarigo and queer culture within the landscape. Waples-Crowe describes the work as a ‘cut-and-paste, punked-up look at my Country’ that ‘looks at Country from an insider-outsider perspective … and uses humour to disarm the view, the true nature of invasion’.²⁰ In the same way Waples-Crowe’s depictions of dingoes are an analogy of survival, Ngaya (I Am) reaffirms the presence of queerness as an inherent and enduring aspect of Aboriginal life, culture and community.
Peter Waples-Crowe, 'Ngaya (I am)' (2022), single-channel video installation, 5 minutes (short clip). With Rhian Hinkley and composer Harry Covill. Comissioned by ACMI. Courtesy of the artist . Copyright Peter Waples-Crowe and ACMI.
As a leader and activist for younger Aboriginal queer people, within his emerging role as a queer Elder in his community, Peter’s work is a visible bringing together of two cultures. Ngarigo queen- Cloak of queer of visibility celebrates the cultural intersection of his Aboriginal and queer worlds, identity and community.
‘Sometimes it can feel like your Aboriginal identity is separate from your queer identity and in all honesty I fought for my queer identity first. My Aboriginal identity revealed itself later in life due to my adoption by the Waples families at birth. It’s interesting that I had to fight for my Aboriginal identity as well. There are a lot of narratives about queerness not belonging to Aboriginal culture and it’s these narratives that I had to fight. Nature is queer - we are OK and we belong in both worlds.’ - Peter Waples-Crowe
Possum skins cloaks were once an everyday item for Aboriginal people in south-eastern Australia. They were worn for warmth, as night coverings, used as baby carriers, during ceremony and for burial. Cloaks were made for young babies and children, consisting of only a few skins before more skins were added as the wearer grew. Possum skin cloaks became less common from the mid-1800s when British colonies distributed woollen blankets to local Aboriginal people in the south-east. Possums are now a protected species in Australia. However, possum skin cloaks remain an important cultural item, symbolising belonging, with contemporary cloaks made with cured skins that are legally and ethically sourced from possums that are an introduced species and pest in Aotearoa (New Zealand).²¹
The cloak is made from fifty possum skins, which have been hand-stitched by Waples-Crowe under the guidance of cloak-making expert Maree Clarke, that envelopes a sequence of etched Ngarigo designs within a rainbow of colour that has been created using leather dyes. The work emphasises the loss of queer Aboriginal roles and traditions, erased by colonisation (often guided by strict religious-heterosexual views) by re-inserting, literally and figuratively, queerness back into culture.
‘Ngarigo Queen – Cloak of Queer Visibility is a statement about standing up for yourself and your Mob when the world is trying to erase you. The work takes the form of the possum skin cloak, a traditional cultural belonging from the South East of Australia and brings it to the forefront of queer activism. It queers Aboriginal traditions that were erased by the strict religious heterosexual gaze of colonisation, as represented by the crucifix sewn into the cloak using different colour furs. It’s a cross of oppression that stopped us from practising our own culture and erased our sexual and gender diversities.’ - Peter Waples-Crowe²²
Footnotes
[1] Carter, J.S. (2017) ‘I want to be a proud, queer elder’: Meet Aboriginal artist Peter Waples-Crowe, ABC News. Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-12/queer-indigenous-artists-pushing-back-from-the-margins/8514772 (Accessed: 26 September 2023).
[2] Cairns, K.M., Crowther, M. and Letnic, M. (2023) New DNA testing shatters ‘wild dog’ myth: Most dingoes are pure, The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/new-dna-testing-shatters-wild-dog-myth-most-dingoes-are-pure-206397 (Accessed: 26 September 2023).
[3] Department of Primary Industries and Regions, South Australia (2023) The Dog Fence in South Australia. Available at: https://pir.sa.gov.au/biosecurity/introduced-pest-feral-animals/find_a_pest_animal/wild_dogs_and_dingoes/dog_fence (Accessed: 26 September 2023).
[4] Department of Primary Industries and Regions, South Australia (2023b) Wild dogs and dingoes. Available at: https://www.pir.sa.gov.au/biosecurity/introduced-pest-feral-animals/find_a_pest_animal/wild_dogs_and_dingoes (Accessed: 26 September 2023).
[5] Department of Primary Industries and Regional Developments, Western Australia (2022) Wild dogs in Western Australia. Available at: https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/state-barrier-fence/wild-dogs (Accessed: 26 September 2023).
[6] New South Wales - Parliamentary Counsel's Office (2011), Work Health and Safety Act 2011, Government of NSW. Available at: https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-2011-010/lh (Accessed: 26 September 2023).
[7] This definition comes from NSW Environment and Heritage. In South Australia, ‘wild dogs’ is also used as a coverall term to ‘describe dingoes, hybrids, and wild domestic dogs’ (Department of Primary Industries and Regions, 2023).
[8] University of New South Wales (no date) Dharug and Dharawal Dictionary Dhargu and Dharawal Resources. Available at: https://dharug.dalang.com.au/ (Accessed: 27 September 2023).
[9] Amery, R., Greenwood, S. and Morley, J. (2022) Kaurna warrapiipa, Kaurna dictionary: Kaurna to English, English to Kaurna. South Australia: Wakefield Press.
[10] Cairns, K.M. , Crowther, M. and Letnic, M. (2023) New DNA testing shatters ‘wild dog’ myth: Most dingoes are pure, The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/new-dna-testing-shatters-wild-dog-myth-most-dingoes-are-pure-206397 (Accessed: 26 September 2023).
[11] Waples-Crowe, P. (no date) Peter Waples-Crowe. Available at: https://peterwaplescrowe.wordpress.com/ (Accessed: 27 September 2023).
[12] Yunkaporta, T. (2017) Blak Critic’s Review: Dirty Dingo, NITV. Available at: https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2017/05/10/blak-critics-review-dirty-dingo (Accessed: 27 September 2023).
[13] Carter, J.S. (2017) ‘I want to be a proud, queer elder’: Meet Aboriginal artist Peter Waples-Crowe, ‘I want to be a proud, queer elder’: Meet Aboriginal artist Peter Waples-Crowe - ABC News. Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-12/queer-indigenous-artists-pushing-back-from-the-margins/8514772 (Accessed: 27 September 2023).
[14] Guerrera, D. et al. (2019) The Aboriginal Gender Study, Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia Ltd. Available at: https://ahcsa.org.au/resources/AHC4831-Gender-Study-online.pdf (Accessed: 26 September 2023).
[15] Hodge, D. (2015) Colouring the rainbow blak queer and trans perspectives: Life stories and essays by First Nations people of Australia. South Australia: Wakefield Press.
[16] Fernando, T. (2023) Embracing queer indigenous Australia, Pursuit. Available at: https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/embracing-queer-indigenous-australia (Accessed: 27 September 2023).
[17] Guerrera, D. et al. (2019) The Aboriginal Gender Study, Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia Ltd. Available at: https://ahcsa.org.au/resources/AHC4831-Gender-Study-online.pdf (Accessed: 26 September 2023).
[18] Carter, J.S. (2017) ‘I want to be a proud, queer elder’: Meet Aboriginal artist Peter Waples-Crowe, ‘I want to be a proud, queer elder’: Meet Aboriginal artist Peter Waples-Crowe - ABC News. Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-12/queer-indigenous-artists-pushing-back-from-the-margins/8514772 (Accessed: 27 September 2023).
[19] Waples-Crowe, P. & Koorie Heritage Trust (2019). insideOUT (exhibition catalogue). Victoria: Koorie Heritage Trust.
[20] NGV (no date). Peter Waples-Crowe: Melbourne now. NGV. Available at: https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/melbourne-now/artists/peter-waples-crowe/ (Accessed: 27 September 2023).
[21] Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (2022) Possum skin cloak, AIATSIS. Available at: https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/possum-skin-cloak (Accessed: 27 September 2023).
[22] Victorian Pride Centre (2021). Ngarigo Queen – Cloak of Queer Visibility finds a permanent home at the Victorian Pride Centre [online] 24 Aug. Accessed at: https://pridecentre.org.au/ngarigo-queen-cloak-of-queer-visibility/
Artist
Writer
Editor
This education resource was written by Alise Hardy and edited by Dominic Guerrera.
PRIDE is presented as part of Tarnanthi: Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art.
This project is supported by the City of Adelaide.
