Legacy: Sustainability, Culture, and Community

I had the pleasure of sitting in a tree house studio discussing the concept of legacy with Jack Randell, a visual artist who lives and works in Dubbo on Wiradjuri Country. Jack is my next Taco’Bout guest on Wednesday 7 August. And while I’m working on a spicy title for our topic of ‘Legacy’ our chat is the kind of deep dive Taco’Bout Wednesdays serve up over a taco and a cheeky margarita.

Jack: ‘I’ve come to understand that “legacy” is not an easy concept to grasp. So I’ve been asked to describe my ideas as a “creative legacy”. I come from a creative background and understand legacy from that point of view, but I recognise it has broader applications – political, historic, and philanthropic. So legacy is something that is essentially an idea that is sustainable, an idea that forms an action with a sustainable benefit.

We have legacies from the past that are echoed forward, and so we can anticipate that they might echo forward again if they’re well-crafted ideas. Somebody at some point invented the wheel, and that seemed just such a good idea that it had a legacy from which we continue to benefit.’

Do you think the word or the idea of creating a legacy is often considered ‘something for others’? I ask this as someone who wonders about conversations held from a position of privilege and how that skews perception.

Jack: ‘I think in our materialist world, often we are drawn to the glitzy stuff, the stuff of life which we enjoy, the benefit of consuming and moving on to the next thing. So in many cases, and this is across demographics as well, the idea of legacy, the idea of that legacy echo or that potential sustainability is not immediately apparent.

As a first-world person, if that’s the position of privilege you’re referring to, we see consumption as an aspirational model, but it also applies to whatever economic circumstance we might find ourselves in. It speaks to that old proverb; give a person a fish and they’ll eat for a day, give them a fishing rod, and they’ll be able to eat for the rest of their life. So a legacy model applies across all realms, not simply eating, but to any area of human activity.’

Would you say First Nations storytelling is legacy?

Jack: ‘Absolutely. I’m not a First Nations person, but for those of my friends who subscribe to those ideas, the legacy of continuous occupation of this continent holds them together, holds culture, society, ideas, and bodies together.

Before I get to the idea of cultural legacy, which is more specific to my field, there’s a theorist called Jacob Bronowski who wrote and presented a tv documentary series and book called The Ascent of Man

Anthropologically, he goes as far back as we know about human communities right through to modern times and follows the rise and fall of cultural trends. He talks about artifacts and the development and influence of artifacts historically. Our museums are full of artifacts. One of the things that he defines as a valuable artifact is something that is useful, that is immediately apparently useful. It embodies an idea that is useful. So the wheel is one example. Internal combustion is another.

Whether a valuable artifact is also a legacy is how it is made. For an artifact to persist it has to be apparent how it is contrived. According to Bronowski, the idea has to reveal its structure at the same time. For example, a really neat piece of wood can’t be a legacy artifact without evidence of its manufacture.

The iPhone however, will not become a legacy artifact because as individuals we can’t make one. The idea of interpersonal communication will be the legacy and other manifestations of  interpersonal communication will be but not the iPhone as a device.’

So, why Creative Legacy?

Jack: ‘The reason that I’m interested in this at the moment is because I think we are beginning to consume culture instead of making culture. So we will stream reels on our devices, and we’ll consume movies, but we are less inclined to be makers of serious content. I mean, we do it by default, and some more than others. But the reasons for making are obscured by the reasons for consuming. Also, I observe that our governments don’t necessarily support legacy events.’

I see what you mean but I want to disagree because particularly in our town, I feel like it’s a really creative place and in other conversations we’ve had, you’ve said that we’re good at making our own fun.

Jack: ‘That’s true. But does that happen at all levels? What I’m proposing at a corporate and government level is the concept of every event being a legacy event. I’m proposing the idea that when corporate and government import “big” culture they also invest locally in those who do make fun stuff here as the makers of culture at ground level.’

So having Dubbo Council include in all contracts that if you’re performing in our region, 10% of people from Dubbo need to be involved in an artistic way?

Jack: ‘Absolutely. That’s exactly what it would look like in an ideal world.