Trade Connection- Indigenous Artwork designed for UNSW Business School by award-winning Design Maker, Debra Beale.
Trade Connection
“ Prior to the invasion of Australia, First Nations communities had established a chain of trade routes all over the continent. The exchange of goods and services was also practised between neighbouring language groups as well as other language groups across the continent.
Trading was vital to First Nation Peoples as it improved their quality of life. Trading objects such as food, seeds, stones, ochres, tools, weapons was not only a method of sharing resources but was a form of social control and lore. It was a way of honouring each other’ s rights, boundaries, and cultural differences.
Many tribes developed good relationships as they respected shared stories of their journeys and narratives of the Dreamtime. Trade was not only linked with materialistic objects but included songs, dances and art, stories, rituals and ceremonies which connected First Nations Peoples to Land, Sea and Sky.”
Debra Beale First Peoples of Australia Award-winning Design Maker