Sea Of Hands . - . Valentine PIERRET

“ANTaR and the Sea of Hands are fundamental to the achievement of justice and Reconciliation in this country”

The Sea of Hands is central to ANTaR’s activities. The Sea of Hands is Australia's largest public art installation and colourfully represents the names of over 300,000 Australians who have shown their support for native title and reconciliation.

The Sea of Hands is recognised by hundreds of thousands of Australians as a symbol of the people's movement for rights-based reconciliation. It was ANTaR’s first public event, staged to protest against the Federal Government's proposed changes to the Native Title Act.

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This is Catherine's Freeman Foundation, established in 2007 with the aim of creating pathways to a brighter future for indigenous children. The Catherine Freeman Foundation works in partnership with community organizations, businesses, schools and other philanthropists pursuing a particular interest in facilitating educational opportunities for young indigenous girls. We have initially chosen the single focus of partnering with the remote indigenous community of Palm Island, 68km south east of Townsville in far north Queensland.

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"To create opportunities for education and learning
To create self belief and pathways
To provide the environment for young indigenous people to help themselves "




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Sea Of Hands is a organisation in Australia created in 1997 by Catherine Freeman, a famous atletic woman . She want's to help indigenous peoples and instaurate peace and egality between black & white ..
Over 300,000 Australians have signed their names on one of 120,000 plastic hands that make up the Sea of Hands, to show their support for Native Title and Reconciliation.

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ANTaR's goals :

• maintaining close liaison with Indigenous leaderships and communities;
• conducting national campaigns and lobbying on Indigenous affairs issues;
• conducting education and awareness projects targeted at non-Indigenous Australians and international audiences.

What's ANTaR ? : Central to ANTaR s activities is the Sea of Hands. Almost 250,000 Australians have put their signatures on a hand in the Sea of Hands and helped in its installation in locations around Australia.

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Australian Aborigines were almost exterminated by the English settlers. Today, they represent only 1% of the Australian population. They were literally massacred by the colonizers and expelled from their land. They were pushed to the North of the country. The Aborigines are extremely spiritual people and by 1770 they were so primitive that they didn't know what metal was. Most instruments and artifacts were made from wood, rock or bones. The boomerang itself was primarily a toy used to entertain the villagers, only later being used as a hunting and war device.


Sea Of Hands was created to help aboriginal tribes

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The Aboriginal Flag is composed of 3 colours ( red and black lines and a yellow circle at the center) :

This flag symbolises Aboriginal identity: Yellow represents the sun(giver of life), red represents the red earth (the relationship to the land) and the red ochre used in ceremonies. Black represents the Aboriginal people.

It was designed by Harold Thomas, a man from Central Australia. It was created as a symbol of unity and national identity for Aboriginal people during the land rights movement of the early 1970s.

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Before doing this work, I did not know anything about the Aborginal history , or the Sea Of Hands and its signification nor what the colors of the Aboriginal flag meant