Governor of New South Wales, Marie Bashir, turned up at the new premises of  Megalo Print Studio and Gallery in Kingston, to celebrate a residency and exhibition by Indigenous artists from Wave Hill and Canberra, part of the Centenary of Canberra’s Indigenous cultural program.

As all too rare sunlight poured in through the newly exposed windows at the old government printing facility that will temporarily house Megalo (“a bit like old Parliament House,” Megalo director Alison Alder agreed) and printers showed guests around the multiroomed facility, it was hard to get away from the fact that the space is right next door to the Fitters’ Workshop, the subject of controversy when it was it was initially allocated to Megalo as a permanent home.

That decision, readers will recall, was contested by the assembled music community of the ACT in one of the most disgraceful exhibitions of non-solidarity our arts community has seen in years.

But this was a joyous occasion, as Ngambri elder, Matilda House, welcomed the Governor as “a girl brought up in Wiradjuri country, who  played on the sandhills  of Narrandera.”
Of course having her  origins in Narrandera was not Mrs Bashir’s only qualification to be present, as Mrs House reminded us.

Back in 1995, in a partnership with the Aboriginal Medical Service in Redfern, she had established the Aboriginal Mental Health Unit and later took up the consultative role of senior psychiatrist to the Aboriginal Medical Service, always “fighting for the underdog.”

The governor, for her part, took up the theme that Australians are one people with one destiny as she unveiled the exhibition of limited edition prints produced by artists Michael Huddleston, Rachel Morris, Violet Wadrill, Biddy Wavehill, Jimmy Wavehill and Zona Wilkinson, with  assistance by printmakers from Megalo.

That surname, Wavehill, had resonance for  everyone present, trading is back to the contribution the Gurindji people of Daguragu and Kalkarindji communities, whose ground breaking strike in the 1960s.
When the Gurindji, Mudpurra, Malngin, Ngarinman, Bilinara and Warlpiri peoples walked off Wave Hill Station in 1966 it was the start of an eight-year strike over wages, but mainly about gaining back rights to their lands. Few Australians can forget the image of  Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam pouring sand into the hand of Gurindji/Malngin leader Vincent Lingiari in 1975, creating, Megalo says,  a lasting bond between Canberra and Wave Hill.
The Wave Hill/Jinparrak Canberra Exchange exhibition,  at  Megalo Print Studio + Gallery, 21 Wentworth Avenue Kingston, Tuesday to Saturday 9:30 AM to 5 PM, until July 27. admission free.

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