Tyson Yunkaporta is an academic, an arts critic, and a researcher who belongs to the Apalech Clan in far north Queensland. He carves traditional tools and weapons and also works as a senior lecturer in Indigenous Knowledges at Deakin University in Melbourne.
Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World
This remarkable book is about everything from echidnas to evolution, cosmology to cooking, sex and science and spirits to Schrödinger’s cat.
Tyson Yunkaporta looks at global systems from an Indigenous perspective. He asks how contemporary life diverges from the pattern of creation. How does this affect us? How can we do things differently?
Sand Talk provides a template for living. It’s about how lines and symbols and shapes can help us make sense of the world. It’s about how we learn and how we remember. It’s about talking to everybody and listening carefully. It’s about finding different ways to look at things.
Most of all it’s about Indigenous thinking, and how it can save the world.
Tyson’s new book Right Story Wrong Story is out in October., 2023.
Testimonials
“It was such an incredible session, thank you. The group had lots of questions and statements to share with Tyson, and it was a beautifully informal (yet deep) conversation. One of the participants asked if we could invite Tyson back for our last residential in December, so I may well be back in touch sooner rather than later!
Please pass on our many thanks to Tyson, and especially for taking time out of his Sunday afternoon to be with us. It was deeply appreciated, and was resoundingly well-received.”
“The presentation was a success. Tyson had the crowd laughing, thinking and, by the end, clapping. His talk was confronting and real. The focus on mutual aid got people thinking. I will send you and Tyson some of the comments we received during the talk.”
‘An extraordinary invitation into the world of the Dreaming… Unheralded.’
‘It was certainty that drove a bulldozer through the oldest and deepest philosophic statement on earth at Burrup Peninsula. Sand Talk offers no certainties and Tyson Yunkaporta is not a bulldozer driver. This is a book of cultural and philosophic intrigue. Read it.’
‘Radical ideas, bursting with reason.’
“Just a short message to send our heartfelt thanks for joining us to host such an enlightening conversation with our International participants last week.
It’s always a pleasure to hear your musings on the state of the world, and we were so grateful to you for holding the space for our participants questions and insights. Thank you for weaving in such timely, relevant and critical responses – it really was such a pleasure and privilege to be in the space to listen.”