Professor Marcia Langton AO (b. 1951), anthropologist, geographer and academic, is a descendant of the Yiman and Bidjara nations of Queensland. Langton is Associate Provost and Foundation Chair of Australian Indigenous Studies at the University of Melbourne, and is a frank and forceful presence in the Australian media. Her Macquarie University doctoral fieldwork was conducted in eastern Cape York Peninsula during the 1990s, and her experience of the statutory land claim and native title system in this region was informed by a decade of administration and fieldwork pertaining to Aboriginal land rights in the Northern Territory. Langton has published widely on Aboriginal land tenure, agreement-making, art and film in publications including Burning Questions: Emerging Environmental Issues for Indigenous Peoples in Northern Australia (1998), Settling with Indigenous People (2006), The Quiet Revolution: Indigenous People and the Resources Boom (2013) and Welcome to Country: A Travel Guide to Indigenous Australia (2018).
This portrait by photographer Juno Gemes was created in Langton's dressing room at the Sydney Opera House, prior to presenting her eponymous award for leadership to Pat O'Shane at what proved to be the final Deadly Awards celebration in 2013. Langton had previously been photographed by Gemes at a protest event in Brisbane in 1982, and wanted a new portrait to show how she has evolved.
Purchased 2015
© Juno Gemes/Copyright Agency, 2024
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
June Oscar AO lauds three iconic Aboriginal figures in the Portrait Gallery collection who have inspired and influenced her.
Brook Andrew, Marcia Langton and Anthony Mundine.
