Land Marks, the exhibition that opened on 28 February 2006, represents the first major reorganisation of the Indigenous galleries at Federation Square since their establishment in 2002 and it reveals some bold curatorial decisions and new directions for display. Featuring more than 200 works, several shown for the first time in public, it comprises a rich tapestry of voices, narratives and agendas. Time has afforded a certain familiarity with the architecture of the gallery spaces, and all the angles, windows and outlooks are used to great effect.

It is also important, however, to acknowledge the historical foundations and antecedents of the new show. From as early as the Melbourne Exhibition of 1854, Indigenous Australian art has appeared in westernised spaces in Victoria. Artist, explorer and naturalist Ludwig Becker included an anonymous ‘pencil drawing by an Aborigine’ in the fine arts section of that exhibition. In 1929, the National Museum of Victoria staged Australian Aboriginal Art ‘with the view to stimulating, public interest in the habits and customs of the Australian Aboriginals’. Works by Tommy McRae—similar to those of his works now exhibited in Land Marks—were included, along with bark paintings from Arnhem Land and Victoria. In 1943, the National Gallery and the National Museum of Victoria staged the speciously titled Primitive Art Exhibition, combining works from New Guinea, Melanesia, Polynesia, the Americas and Africa with bark paintings and painted shields from across Australia.