Kevin McCloud

What it means to me is terribly moving to me because of those stories that are attached to them and because of the incredible work that people have done and the thought processes that have gone into creating

Making them.

The skill, when I look at Indigenous art, I think, how can someone concentrate for so long singing the song that goes into this story?

So it's about, to me, it's not that I can fully explain, but it's about the people behind it.

And the stories they're trying to tell.

And then funny stories like this one here by an artist called Václav Maha.

He was the husband of a friend of mine who was Czechoslovakian.

And he came home when he and his wife were about 70 and said, nothing personal, but I want a divorce.

So every time I look at that painting, I think, nothing personal, but I want a divorce.

It's just the most bizarre thing.

This painting here, we actually gave to some people who'd come from Zimbabwe and they didn't have any paintings on their walls.

We gave it to them for their walls in Perth.

They went back to Zimbabwe and somehow someone, it turned up in auction and I was able to buy it back.

Yes.

It is an interesting thing to be born and grow up on this side of a continent where you often meet people, you know, meet people in Sydney who've never been to Perth.

They've been to Hawaii or Los Angeles or London or Europe, parts of Europe.

But we actually live in a very different part of the world.

when I was involved with founding a theatre company, Black Swan, and we focused our works on the Indian Ocean rim.

And twice I've had exhibitions here of craft from the Indian Ocean.

not from Hawaii or Sydney or Brisbane, but from India or South Africa or Malaysia and so on.