mission songs project, Australia
with collaborator Jessie Lloyd
Through most of last century, the First Nations people of Australia were subject to racist assimilation policies and systemic land dispossession. Many were forcibly relocated from their traditional homelands to missions (see map), where their languages and cultural practices were prohibited.
Location of government settlements, missions, and reserves in Queensland, australia, 1957. Map: Queensland Government 1958. (Used with permission)
On the missions, First Nations people began to co-opt the sanctioned Western musical idioms and instruments for their own purposes. They quickly found new ways to express their cultural and social identities, despite the oppression. The resulting genre has come to be known as "mission songs".
In the Mission Songs Project, First Nations musician Jessie Lloyd rediscovers, records, revives, and celebrates these songs. If the Project is a sombre reminder about how cultural and racial oppression can interlock, it also demonstrates how new musical creativities sometimes spring from the restrictions borne of social injustice.
This case study explores the mission songs genre as a creative act of resilience, self-determination, cultural expression, and cultural survival that continues, even today, to advance cultural and racial justice for Australia’s First Peoples.
