Producer unknown to us
Sticker “Treaty ‘88”
Australia, Queensland, Brisbane
1987
Adhesive film
Birgit Scheps (Curator for Australia) acquired this sticker in 1987, during a study trip to Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand
Donated to the museum by Scheps 1987
Au 4129
The sticker was distributed by “Treaty `88,” an Indigenous NGO in the land rights movement. It reads “Life, Justice, Treaty `88” in black, along with the outline of the Australian continent and the inscription “Aboriginaland” (a pun on the phrase “Aboriginal and Australia”), a sun, and boomerangs. Birgit Scheps, currently curator for Australia and the Pacific at Leipzig, acquired this sticker 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