Kevin Gilbert
Button “Treaty ´88“
Australia, South Australia, Adelaide
1987
Metal, plastic
Birgit Scheps (Curator for Australia) acquired this button in 1987, during a study trip to Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand
Donated to the museum by Scheps 1987
Au 4142
The Indigenous NGO “Treaty `88“ distributed stickers and buttons such as this one to work towards a new Indigenous land rights treaty for Australia’s 200-year anniversary. This button shows a snake (representing the Rainbow Serpent, a mythical entity from Indigenous creation stories), coiled around the Australian continent in the colors of the land rights movement. In the center, an inscription reads “Treaty `88,” along with the Committee’s address in Canberra. Above the outline of the continent, an Inscription reads “Aboriginaland,” a pun on the common phrase “Aboriginal and Australia(n),” to symbolize the relationship Indigenous Australians have with their land. Birgit Scheps, currently curator for Australia and the Pacific at Leipzig, acquired this button during a study trip in 1987.
In 1988, Australia commemorated the 200-year anniversary of its founding as a British colony that later became the Federation of Australian States. However, the Indigenous population had no reason to celebrate, and used the “Bicentenary” to protest racism, injustice, and discrimination against First Australians, and, most importantly, to demand their traditional land rights.
For the first time, these protests also reached a wide international audience.
Birgit Scheps-Bretschneider