LY Lyliane - Sea of hands.

"The Sea of Hands was created" in 1997.

The Sea of Hands is an initiative of ANTaR's (Australians for Native Title and Reconcialation). ANTaR's fights for Aboriginals' rights.
Currently, it is the biggest art installation in Australia. The Sea of Hands has been installed in every main city (such as Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney) and many regional locations all around Australia (in Northern Territory: Yulura, Uluru. In western Australia: Geraldton, Perth, Warriparinga.).
Hands are planted in the ground and on the back of every hands, there are stickers where people can write something such as a name.
There are a lot of signatures : more than 300 000 Australians have signed their names on one of those hands.
So it shows that Australians want and support the Reconciliation between the peoples.



Australia :

The 3 colors (red, yellow and black) symbolise the Aboriginal flag. This is why they are the main colors use for the Hands. Here is the Aboriginal flag in the Australian map. It may symbolise the cohabitation and the beggining of a reconciliation (?).

The word "aboriginal" was used in Australia to describe Indigenous people. Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of Australia. When the English people arrived in Australia, Aboriginals were discriminated against and segregated from the white population. Aboriginals' children were stolen and sent to centers. The settlers, the white population, wanted to eliminate Aboriginals so they created some laws which allow them to kidnap children. They "made" half-castes: they wanted to marry every Aboriginal women to white men so that little by little, generations after generations, there is no Aboriginal blood anymore. Fortunately their goal was not reach. I just wonder how humans can do those things to other human beings. What happened is totally horrible.






Here is a picture of the half-castes who played in the film "Rabbit-proof fence" (a real story).
This film shows the violence happened in Western Australia during the persecution. The 3 girls that we see on the picture were stolen to their mothers and sent to a center. They slept in a dormitory and it was quite dirty. When they arrived to the center, they discovered a lot of other half-castes.




Here is an Aboriginal surrounded by a "field" of hands with an Aboriginal's instrument. I took this picture because to my mind, this is a way to show that everyone want to reconciliate. For me, it is a beautiful picture who shows that cohabitation can exist. But did Aboriginals really forgive? And if they did, can they forget ? I guess that what white people did is unforgetable but maybe forgivable because it is the past and people do not have to be focused on what happened but on what will happen. People should not look behind them. But it is not a reason to forget because mistakes help to look toward a brighter future. Sometimes, people need to remind them their mistakes in order not to do the same things again.


An Aboriginal woman and a white women who are holding hands and hugging each other (in a sea of hands).

They look like close and quite happy: they are smiling.
A proof of reconciliation ?





So this tragic event and the Sea of Hands are a sign of solidarity and a will to apologise or to forget and maybe to forgive (?) what happened.

If you want to create your own hand.
Click here and then on "add a hand".