Great Sporting Land has been launched – the first dedicated celebration of sporting culture on Google Arts & Culture. Collections, stories and knowledge from over 30 renowned institutions across Australia have been brought together, including the Ian Potter Museum of Art.
Artists are creative provocateurs who arouse audience sensibilities and consciousness by acknowledging the multifarious contested human histories that are pivotal to the development of fundamental human rights. History shows us that sport also has the power to arouse strong feelings in audiences everywhere, and so, too, have human rights issues within the sporting arena and beyond been the catalyst for widespread global movements that indicate the continuous human drive to strive towards equity and a better world. In this context, both artists and sports people powerfully communicate the capacity of creative endeavour and sporting achievement to promote inclusivity and cultural diversity.
A defining moment in the racial history of Australian sport occurred in 1993 when two Indigenous Australian Rules footballers, Nicky Winmar and Gilbert McAdam, endured a day of abuse at the hands of Collingwood supporters. At the conclusion of the game, Winmar lifted his guernsey and pointed to his black skin in a moment of defiance and pride. Captured by photographer Wayne Ludbey, the image graced the front pages of the next day’s newspapers. This historic moment is now rightly recognised as the catalyst for the movement against racism in Australian football, and indeed Australian sport more broadly, both on and off the field.
Twenty years later, during the week that the same sport celebrated the contribution of Indigenous players, a 13-year-old girl called Sydney Swans footballer Adam Goodes an ape: evidence that the fight against racism has a long way to go.
Richard Bell speaks through art with a political voice that often communicates justice issues, sometimes with overt confrontational imagery and at other times with humour that reflects the ability to laugh in the face of adversity. In the collaborative painting A white hero for black Australia (2011) Bell in collaboration with Emory Douglas, an artist and former Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party from 1967 until its closure in the early 1980s, celebrate the bravery of three young athletes: a white Australian, Peter Norman, and two African Americans, Tommy Smith and John Carlos. The athletes stood together in solidarity at their 1968 Olympic Games award ceremony – Smith won the 200-metre race in a world record time and was awarded the gold medal, with Norman in second place winning silver and Carlos in third winning bronze. On the podium, Smith and Carlos raised their fists in a ‘black power salute’ while Norman wore an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge to communicate his support.
The online exhibition features over 11,000 archived images and videos, and more than 100 original stories that celebrate the unifying spirit of this sports-mad nation.
Please explore our three online exhibits.
The Theatre of Sport: Entertainment, Spectacle, Celebrity and Heroism
Performance: Success, anxiety, failure
Political Activism, Civil Rights and Cultural Diversity in Sports