Скачать или смотреть John Goldsmith & Quinton Tucker: Australia’s Cultural Night Sky

Our project aims to provide an intergenerational experience on country to enable a group of
Aboriginal youth aged 12 – 15 years to experience the splendours of a truly dark night sky
and cultural storytelling, which will take place at a very special landscape at Lake Ballard in
the Goldfields region of WA. This site is home to acclaimed international artist Sir Antony
Gormley’s “Inside Australia” project, with 51 alien-like metal statues widely located across
the Lake Ballard salt lake. The major outcome envisaged from this project is to significantly
advance and enhance community attitudes and valuing of cultural astronomy. We will
achieve this via the creation and field testing of a positive cultural learning experience for
Aboriginal youth. Our project is funded by the IAU via the international Astronomy for
Development programme (Astro4dev.org) which is administered in Cape Town, South
Africa.

Dark night skies are a vital prerequisite to preserve, maintain and communicate
Australian Aboriginal sky knowledge. Several sky patterns originating from ancient
Aboriginal culture in Australia, are recognized from dark areas in the Milky Way. Visibility of
these “dark nebulae” are drastically affected by urban light pollution. This prevents or
severely restricts their appreciation by those who live in urban, light polluted areas.
Maintaining dark skies for the benefit of all, is a vital goal. Western Australian Aboriginal
astronomical knowledge is intimately based on awareness and experience of dark night
skies. Many Indigenous and Aboriginal communities throughout the world are focussed on
caring for our own planet, via relationships, awareness, responsibility and care. This
approach contrasts sharply with ego based exploitive approaches of modern space
exploration. Faced with multiple threats including light pollution and massive increase is
satellite traffic, these negative effects can be countered via awareness, experience and
community learning. The inspiration behind our project comes from several sources,
including (1) Western Australian Museum astrophotography exhibit “Western Australia by
Night” (2) PhD Thesis “Cosmos, Culture and Landscape” (2014) (3) “Visions of the Cosmos,
Landscape Astrophotography from Western Australia” (2023), (4) recent documentary films
including “The Borderless Sky, The Aboriginal Sky of Australia” and “Fireball, Visitors from
Darker Worlds” and (5) experience and learnings from the 2023 Total Solar Eclipse,
Exmouth, Western Australia.

The direct management, control and direction of the project by Koya Aboriginal
Corporation in partnership with Celestial Visions (www.celestialvisions.com.au) is a vital part
of our future success story and we hope that our story will help to inspire others to develop
socially responsible, positive ventures into the future.