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Historian Shino Konishi explores the experiences in the 1960s of young Torres Strait Islander men who moved from the Torres Strait to the Australian mainland to work on railway construction.

Renowned art collector Janet Holmes à Court discusses the deeply moving work of Aboriginal artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye with National Museum curator Margo Neale.

Museum director and Emily Kame Kngwarreye exhibition curator Akira Tatehata explores the ironies of ‘the impossible modernist’ from another cultural space, as a Japanese man steeped in his own culture and an international art curator and academic.

Indigenous art curator Djon Mundine examines the art of Emily Kame Kngwarreye, drawing parallels with other late-style female artists to deepen the understanding of Emily and her work beyond the local perspective.

Artist and gallery owner Christopher Hodges, who had a close association with Emily Kame Kngwarreye, affirms her position as an abstract artist and provides insights into how her thinking was reflected in the Emily exhibition in Japan.

Chrischona Schmidt examines Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s role as painter in the community of Utopia and Gwen Horsfield looks at Australia’s participation at the Venice Biennale 1978-2007, where Emily was one of the featured Australian artists.

Art writer and critic Susan McCulloch discusses the significance of Emily Kame Kngwarreye in twentieth-century Australian art, her contribution to its development and the stylistic breakthroughs of her work.

The National Museum’s Margo Neale and Dennis Grant welcome participants to the Emily Kame Kngwarreye symposium, for the exchange of cultural perspectives by Australian and Japanese speakers. Includes a welcome by Ngunnawal elder Agnes Shea.

Art historian Chiaki Ajoika, Aboriginal art consultant Mayumi Uchida and Australian Embassy official Hitomi Toku discuss Japanese responses to the Osaka and Tokyo exhibitions of Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s work, with Ronin Films managing director Andrew Pike.

Historian Ann McGrath discusses paintings as agents of history, bringing history into the present. She looks at the work of Emily Kame Kngwarreye to investigate how paintings tell different stories depending on where they are presented.