Australian deserts

In 2015-16, The Australian Heritage Council commissioned research into the indicative cultural (historic and Indigenous) National Heritage values associated with Australian deserts, as limited by the sub-theme of water.  This study considers ‘the Australian deserts’ as a region, and asks how the histories and cultures of people in this region might be distinctive compared to those of the non-desert fringes of the continent. As the geographically dominant part of the Australian continent, any
distinctive qualities of desert Australia, and those places which demonstrate that distinctiveness, have the potential to be significant national identifiers. To establish what they are requires definition
of the qualities of the Australian deserts. This contextual thematic essay  explores these qualities. It provides ‘a framework for understanding the cultural heritage significance of Australian deserts, as limited by the sub-theme of water’. It reviews the characteristics of Australian
deserts, the forms of water that occur in them and people’s responses and adaptations to these through time.

While playing classical piano music written by European composers in arid Winton, QLD, my mother grew up wishing she was elsewhere. In 1929, aged thirteen years, her dedication to the European canon was rewarded with a music degree conferred by the London College of Music.

My mother was not alone in her desire for recognition and acclaim by European culture. White Australians obsession with British and European culture, landscape and history throughout the nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries, is well documented. In fact, the tendency to deny those aspects of Australian reality that are perceived to be strange, unpalatable or inconvenient continues in Australia today.

My research Beneath Horizons: Australian Desert Landscapes, analyses preconceptions such as fear of a vast and dangerous void, that are held by many urban-dwelling Australians who cling to the metaphorical rim of the continent, rarely venturing inside to experience the desert for themselves. Consequently, our concept of the desert is configured from cultural histories, mythologies, maps, televisual and cinematic constructs. We imagine the desert, but without going there. We don’t immerse ourselves in the desert space, experience the freedom of endless space, or see expansive horizons that activate our senses and transform the desert into a spiritual place. The installation Red Desert Project for example, offers urban-dwellers a micro-experience of being out there in the red sand desert.

My research focused on the ground beneath me to locate my presence as an observer at a particular time and place in the desert landscape. I engaged daily with the forces of nature that continually transformed the desert floor of that place. I made three journeys to the desert, camping in remote sites significant to colonial explorers to experiment and record my experiences with the forces of nature and to map ever-changing details of the living desert. I wanted to gain insights into why my mother avoided the arid landscape of her childhood and why most Australians avoid the central deserts of Australia.

This research aimed to map the perceived emptiness of the desert landscape and contribute to an increased perception and awareness of the movement of time and space in the imagined desert landscape of Australia, so that people may be encouraged to treat the land, along with its Indigenous custodians, with more insight, empathy and respect.

Australia is among the most urbanized people in the world, but the "outback" - the desert and semi-arid areas of the center and the North of the continent - is rarely considered. While the Northern zone has always been considered the likely direction of foreign attack. Few recognize the Spacial Air Service established in 1957, based in the State of Western Australia - everything to the north is desert or arid in climate and conditions.