Envoy seeks collaboration to bring together indigenous Australian music, traditional Indian music

New Delhi: Australian High Commissioner Philip Green on Wednesday said that after the acclaimed art exhibition -- 'Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters' -- being hosted in Delhi, he now desires to see a "collaboration" that brings together indigenous Australian music and traditional Indian music.

He was speaking at an interactive session hosted here in the presence of Australian First Nations artist and designer Grace Lillian Lee, who will present her work -- 'Winds of Guardians' -- at the India Art Fair in the national capital.

The India Art Fair 2026 will be held in Delhi from February 5-8.

Drawing on her indigenous heritage, Lee's work explores themes of identity, country, sustainability and indigenous sovereignty through a contemporary lens.

Born in Cairns, Australia, in 1988, Lee is a Torres Strait Islander, an indigenous Australian designer, artist, advocate, and the founder of First Nations Fashion + Design (FNFD), a national platform dedicated to empowering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander creatives through sustainable pathways into the fashion industry.

"It's a very exciting week for us. For the first time, we are having a major Torres Strait Islander artist, Grace Lillian Lee, who is exhibiting her artwork as part of the India Art Fair. Her people come from the top right-hand corner of Australia, in the islands between northern Australia and Papua New Guinea," Green said.

"She has taken some of the traditions from that part of her heritage and bound that with more modern Australian traditions of fashion and design. And the beautiful results we have are highly wearable, very exciting, beautiful fashion, which is grounded in the traditions of Australian indigenous people," he said during an interaction with PTI.

A descendant of the Miriam Mer Semsep people of the Eastern Islands of the Torres Strait, Lee is shaping the landscape of Australian fashion by celebrating First Nations culture and talent.

In 2010, Lee graduated in Fashion Design at RMIT University in Melbourne and is now recognised as Australia's leading indigenous artist and fashion designer.

First Nations refer to people of Australia who draw their roots to the indigenous population of the continent.

The Australian high commissioner, when asked if any collaborative project is in the offing, said, "We've done a few things in the visual area and most recently at the Humayun's Tomb Museum, the Songlines exhibition, which is still up, and I urge your viewers to go and see that."

"But I am a music guy, and I'd love to do something in the music area. If we can find a collaboration between indigenous Australian music and traditional Indian music, which I also very much love, I'd love to do something in that sphere. So, watch that space," he told PTI.

'Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters' -- an immersive multimedia installation, based on the National Museum of Australia's internationally acclaimed exhibition -- is on display at Humayun's Tomb World Heritage Site Museum in New Delhi.

The project, which began last November, representing more than 100 artists, is an Aboriginal-led exhibition developed in 2017 that takes visitors on a journey along the epic 'Seven Sisters Dreaming' tracks, through art, indigenous voices, innovative multimedia, and other immersive displays.