What happened to Thailand's Ban Chiang relics? Plus Judy Watson's life of art

The Art Show

A culture that flourished 3,500 years ago in Thailand. They made jewellery and ceramics, not war. You may never have heard of Ban Chiang —That’s possibly because the objects that tell the story of this fascinating archaeological site are in limbo, caught between voracious collectors, tomb-raiding locals and undercover federal agents. Art historian Dr Melody Rod-ari tells Daniel the story.

For four decades Judy Watson has been making layered, ethereal art about profound and difficult subjects: frontier violence, dispossession and ecological destruction. From her beginnings with the famed Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative, to lithographs and her monumental public artworks, Daniel speaks to Judy Watson at her largest survey show at the Queensland Art Gallery, ‘mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri: Judy Watson’. The stories in this episode were first broadcast in 2023 and March 2024.