In the late twentieth century, settler Australia was reminded more vigorously and effectively than ever before of colonisation’s exploitation or annihilation of Indigenous communities. This was not simply the result of an awakened postcolonial social conscience or a renewal in civic moral virtue. It was driven rather by a resurgence in many Indigenous cultures after generations of physical and psychological warfare. Australia was asked to take notice, listen up and come to terms. 

The resurgence of Indigenous culture and thought continues. Confident, smart and sensitive Aboriginal artists, writers and theorists create world-class work in every genre. Tough and autonomous critical milieux have developed, liberated from colonial and modern mythologies about Aboriginal culture and its relations to Western ways of thinking and seeing. Flourishing Indigenous arts and literary scenes have grown around a new generation of Aboriginal publishers, curators, writers, editors, film-makers, choreographers and savvy arts entrepreneurs. They are all unique, but in concert they promote Indigenous values in the face of what Larissa Behrendt astutely describes as mainstream Australia’s ‘psychological terra nullius’.