Sydney Opera House lit up with Aboriginal Australian art projection to celebrate world’s oldest living culture

Celebrations mark 50 years since Aborigines were counted as part of Australian population

(Getty)

Sydney Opera House is to be illuminated with a projection of indigenous art every evening for a year, as part of a range of cultural displays to mark a historic anniversary for Aborigines in Australia.

The light show, which will run for seven minutes from sunset each day, is called Badu Gili or "water light" in the language of the Gadigal people, who are the traditional owners of Bennelong Point, where Sydney Opera House is built. Its launch coincided with the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum in which Australians voted overwhelmingly in favour of including Aboriginal Australians in the census, and was broadcast live by the opera house.

The projection features the works of five First Nation artists from across Australia and the Torres Straight Islands, including Jenuarrie (Judith Warrie), Frances Belle Parker, Alick Tipoti and the late Lin Onus and Minnie Pwerle.

The opera house's head of First Nations programming, Rhoda Roberts, said the show would "create a gateway to Australia's First Nations history and culture for the 8.2 million people who visit the Opera House each year".

In another celebration of the 50th anniversary of Aborigines being counted as part of the population, and the 25th anniversary of a milestone court case that paved the way for recognition of indigenous land ownership, Australia raised indigenous flags alongside its national standard over its oldest public building.

The flags, representing the oldest living cultures in the world, mark another step on a long and often troubled road to reconciliation with its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They were raised above the governor's house in Sydney, where the fledgling colony was settled as an outpost of the British Empire in 1788.

"Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are our first people," the New South Wales Governor, David Hurley, said at the flag- raising, where a traditional smoke, or cleansing, ceremony was performed. "You have fought and died alongside Australians under the Australian flag ... even before being counted as part of the population," he added.

Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders make up 2.8 per cent of Australia's population of 24.5 million, but have disproportionately high rates of suicide and incarceration, ranking near the bottom in almost every economic and social indicator. Denied the vote until the mid-1960s, they face a 10-year gap in life expectancy compared with other Australians and make up 27 per cent of the prison population. The United Nations has criticised their living standards.

There has been a push for reconciliation in recent decades, a term to describe moves towards mutual respect and equal legal and social status between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.

Patrick Dodson, one of Australia's most senior indigenous politicians, said the ceremony was "an indicator of progress at an institutional level". "The redress of injustice travels slowly but inevitably," Mr Dodson told Reuters.

Last month, indigenous leaders rejected symbolic recognition of Aboriginal people in the Australian constitution and instead called for a constitutionally enshrined indigenous voice in parliament.

The flags had previously flown over government house in Sydney for short periods but it is the first time in any state they have been installed permanently above a public building.

"The Aboriginal flag holds a special place in the lives of Aboriginal peoples, it talks to our connection to land, our culture and the strength of our peoples," the NSW Aboriginal Land Council chairman, Roy Ah-See, said.