Bush yam and bark
Moving image: Explore cultures and art making around the world
Moving image: Explore cultures and art making around the world
This is the food we ate when I was young. Back then everywhere we looked there were old people. Strong and healthy – they lived with us for a long time.
“This is the food we ate when I was young. Back then everywhere we looked there were old people. Strong and healthy – they lived with us for a long time”.
In this short film we join Ms Wirrpanda at the Buku-Larrnggay Art Centre in Yirrkala, East Arnhem Land. Ms Wirrpanda works alongside artist Ms Marawili in the centre’s outdoor painting area as she paints on bark using traditional ochres.
Also an accomplished printmaker, Ms Wirrpanda signs her prints at the Buku-Larrnggay Art Centre’s Yirrkala Print Space. At the time of filming, the print space was co-ordinated by Annie Studd.
Ms Wirrpanda’s works describe early events during Ancestral (and present) times at Yalata close to the Dhudi-Djapu clan homeland of Dhuruputjpi.
Ms Wirrpanda was also expert in her knowledge of plants and their uses in the East Arnhem Land region and had a long and creative friendship with fellow artist John Wolseley.
In this film we join the great Yolngu leader and artist Djambawa Marawili in his homeland of Baniyala, nestled so beautifully on the shores of Blue Mud Bay in East Arnhem Land.
We tour John’s painting and learn more about the plants that now come to life on its surface.
In this film we learn about the food plants of East Arnhem Land through the eyes, pen and brush of two great artists.
Each and every day Nyapanyapa worked at Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre, the internationally famous art centre at Yirrkala in East Arnhem Land. The country, the land and sea, deep in long held knowledge, in culture, in law, in nature and in creativity.