AUSTRALIA’S NATIONAL INDIGENOUS ARTS AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED

The Australia Council for the Arts announced two First Nations elders, Uncle Jack Charles and Aunty Lola Greeno, as the recipients of this year’s top National Indigenous Arts Awards (NIAA) in a ceremony held on Monday at the Sydney Opera House. They will each receive $35,000 in prize money as part of the Red Ochre Awards for Lifetime Achievement. 

Charles cofounded the first Aboriginal theater company Nindethana in 1972 and is acknowledged as the grandfather of Australian Aboriginal theater. His acting career spans over sixty years, and in 2014, he received the Green Room Lifetime Achievement Award. He was named Victorian Senior Australian of the Year in 2016.

Greeno is best known for her traditional shell necklaces, which she crafts using a technique that has been passed down in her family for generations. Over her thirty-year career, her work has been exhibited and collected by the Powerhouse Museum, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Tasmanian Museum, and the Queensland Art Gallery.

Artist Jenna Lee received the Dreaming Award, which recognizes emerging artists between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six, and will be given $14,000 for the prize.

The NIAA is an annual event held on May 27 to mark the anniversary of the 1967 Australian referendum, a constitutional amendment that allowed for the inclusion of Aboriginal peoples in the national population census and legislation process.