FAMOUS RUSTY NORTHERN TERRITORY TRUCK/ BRIAN MANNING / DEXTER DANIELS / GURINDJI STRIKE FOR FREEDOM

 

‘Australian heritage’ made real by a Bedford truck

 

Dr Christine Tarbett-Buckley

Thursday 1 June
Charles Darwin University Art Gallery at 12:30pm
All welcome

Banner #6 of the Gurindji freedom banners, featuring the Bedford truck during the Wave Hill strike. Reproduced courtesy of Karungkarni Art and Culture.

Dr Christine Tarbett-Buckley will consider the story of the rusted Bedford truck that was used by unionists, Brian Manning and Dexter Daniels to transport provisions to the Gurindji during the Wave Hill Strike in 1966. Its ordinary appeal as a Ford-manufactured utility vehicle was heightened by its association with the Aboriginal protest by Gurindji peoples, causing it become an icon of ‘Australian heritage’ due to its part in the strike which prompted the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (NT) 1976. The truck is now part of the National Museum of Australia collection. 

Dr Tarbett-Buckley will narrate the story of the Bedford truck between temporal and spatial settings and elaborate on how the truck materialised as ‘Australian heritage’, symbolically asserting the Australian state as a polity reconciling differences between its First Nations and other peoples. The situational and historical contexts of the truck will be discussed to reveal aspects of the nation’s past, present and emergent histories.

                                    

The Bedford truck on display in the National Museum of Australia, Canberra. Photograph by Michael Wells,  2017.

Dr  Tarbett-Buckley has research interests in institutional practice domains of heritage. She was awarded her Doctorate by CDU in 2022. Her doctoral thesis examined social and material characteristics of Australian heritage in the Northern Territory. Christine previously worked as the Head of Collections at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT). Originally trained as an archaeologist in Ireland, she has resided in the Territory since 1991. Christine is an honorary Emeritus Curator at MAGNT and an Adjunct Research Associate with the Northern Institute at Charles Darwin University.