The winners of the 2020 First Nations Arts Awards have been announced during a live streamed ceremony at the Sydney Opera House. Respected elders Alison Milyika Carroll and Djon Mundine OAM were honoured with the Red Ochre Awards for Lifetime Achievement, while Thea Anamara Perkins won the 2020 Dreaming Award for a young and emerging artist, and Maree Clarke was the recipient of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Fellowship. The Awards acknowledge and celebrate the extraordinary creativity and lifetime achievements of First Nations artists, and are held annually on May 27 to mark the anniversary of the 1967 referendum.

Alison Milyika Carroll. Photo © Meg Hansen

“For the first time, everyone in Australia and globally had the opportunity to join the celebration of these outstanding First Nations artists,” said Deputy Chair of the Australia Council for the Arts and event co-host, Lee-Ann Tjunypa Buckskin. “It was incredibly powerful to be able to come together online in this way to recognise and celebrate the centrality of First Nations artists to Australian culture and share that with a global audience.”

Alison Milyika Carroll is a senior Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara woman. Her artistic practice, which spans...