Creative cowboy films connecting cultures around the world. Christopher Green collects Creative cowboy films’ European Web Award in the City of Westminster in 2017. The award was for our work aimed at stopping Brexit and as it turned out, accurately predicting the damage and division that Brexit would cause in the UK, to Europe and around the world, including to our friends in Japan.
“I can’t wait to see what Chris Green comes up with next”. Sir Ian McKellen
Artist Napolean Oui, a Djabugay man, is focussed on his research about his cultural heritage. It is from this research and its findings that Napolean has developed his contemporary art practice and distinctive style of art making.
North Queensland’s tropical rainforests covered the coastal region between what is now the Bloomfield River in the North and Townsville in the South and inland through the ranges and tablelands. These forests stretched for 500 kilometers along the coastal ranges, an area of more than 25,000 square kilometres containing some of the most precious rainforest on earth.
Tribal groups living in these extensive rainforests were Banjin, Bar-Barrum, Djabugay, Djiru, Girramay, Gulngay, Gunggandji, Jirball, Koko Muluridji, Kuku Yalanji, Ma-Mu, Ngadjon-Jii, Nywaigi, Warrgamay, Warungnu, Yidinji and Yirrganydji.
“I have put together a database of 200 different shield designs and it was during my research that I discovered that the rainforest tribes made bark cloth, a material I have now incorporated into my art practice. All my designs are my own designs but I go back and think about the people and their culture and try to reinterpret that. What I feel about my art is that it is part of my culture, it all sort of goes together. I express our connection to living things and the land in the designs using strong ochre colours highlighted by black outlines as found traditionally on the shields of the rainforest”.
It is from this research and its findings that Napolean has developed his contemporary art practice and a distinctive style of art making. Napolean’s designs incorporate elements of nature including termites, depicted by white dashes on the bark of trees, ant mounds, fan palms, spiders, spider webs, fish, fish tails, and fish eggs, black bean pods, butterflies, Cassowaries and aspects of culture such as fish traps, boomerangs, spirits, fire sticks and various artefacts.
Adapting to rainforest life, as Aboriginal people did over thousands of years, meant a great deal of specialisation that enabled life in the dense rainforest.
The patterns of the rainforest, the traditional decorations of these tribal people were also significantly different to those found in other parts of Aboriginal Australia. The material culture of these tribes included large and broad shields with bold patterns that differed from tribe to tribe, there were large wooden swords, often 1.5 metres long, and there were cross boomerangs. These forest dwelling tribes also made bark cloth, used as bedding, for shelters and in ceremonies.
The distinctive shields were made from the buttress roots of the native fig tree. The shields were use during ceremonies and in battle. They were precious objects and gave the owner status and power. Shield designs were individual and reflected the owner’s totem and kinship. The decoration of ochres and charcoal often contained the blood of the owner to enhance the shields potency in battle.
" Only certain men had shields, having a shield was like having gold in your hands, shields were something you had to earn".
As part of the process of dispossession during the 19th and 20th centuries much of the cultural knowledge from these rainforest peoples was lost, what remains in museums across the region is often poorly documented.
Cultural practice was discouraged and as people were moved off their land and into reserves and missions, large areas of the rainforest was destroyed, much of it becoming agricultural land.
Many artefacts were destroyed during this period as little value was attributed to these unique cultures and their histories. Weapons were typically taken away from the men and many were buried or destroyed as a way of disempowerment.
What artefacts remain today, particularly the rainforest shields, are now regarded as extremely precious objects.
"The rainforest was our backyard and the ocean was our front yard".
The dry and the wet seasons influenced migration patterns in the various tribal territories. People lived in family groups, the women gathering food and the men hunting and defending their territory.
Rainforest dwellings were constructed from branches, fronds and paperbark. Paperbark and fronds were used extensively to keep people dry from the heavy rain during the wet seasons. Women and children typically slept in these shelters while the men slept by the campfire.
"Sometimes they made caves dug out of the side of a bank then they would sweep the ground as they go into the caves and nobody can come past and see the footprints. Especially in that situation there is always someone who walks last with leaves and brushes away the footprints".
We join Alick in Cairns, North Queensland as he makes a series of masks used in performance. Like so much of the Torres Strait Islander culture the atmosphere in the studio is powerful. Alick speaks in his language Kalaw Lagaw Ya.
Alick Tipoti was born on Waiben Island, Torres Strait, in1975. This was precisely the moment that Andrea and I were making our first journeys into Far North Queensland and to Cape York and meeting Indigenous Australians for the first time. It was also the time we began to collect the artworks of Aboriginal and Melanesian culture.
In the intervening years, Alick has become a notable cultural figure and a highly skilled and now famous artist.
Andrea and I have been lucky enough to travel with Alick to Badu and Moa Islands and to meet the elders, his family and many of his friends. We learn from Alick just how precious the culture, the languages, the art and performance of the Torres Strait are, and how skilled and creative the artists of the region are.
We acknowledge the importance of the languages of the Torres Strait.
The master at work is an intimate portrait of artist, Peter Churcher, as he becomes an Australian war artist and contemplates a move to Spain. Filmed in 2005 in his studio in Prahran, Melbourne.
For me every time I look at one of those great masters, Velázquez, Goya or Rembrandt, it is like a reminder, they just remind me how it should be done.
Peter Churcher paints people, the street kids, the scientists, the business people, the great breadth of the characters that form the canvas of Australian society.
Peter Churcher receives a phone call at the beach:
"Can you be the next Australian war artist? In the film we discover what happened in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan".
Peter also discusses his adventures in Tuscany as he paints a portrait of fellow artist Jeffrey Smart.
It was during this period that Peter began to think seriously about making the move to Barcelona where he now lives. The master at work records the period prior to Peter’s departure and gives a glimpse of the artist in his Melbourne studio.
"In the old days when I would travel to Europe once every two years and cram a lot of old master looking into a few short weeks, I would try and take note of all these reminders and lessons I was learning and bring these back to Australia with me. Now, because I am living in Spain, I am having a more regular and continuous access. I am being reminded of this on a more constant level and what they are basically reminding me of is, you know, that less is more, don’t fuss around with the peripheral things but get to the heart of the matter. Paint with real conviction, real acuity, with that sense of sharpness of the eye. And every time I see these pictures, I am reminded of this and I can go straight back to the studio and apply it to my own practice”.
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.
The artist John Wolseley recalls spending time with Djambawa:
“A few years ago I was standing on the edge of the monsoon rainforest bordering a vast flood plain near the homeland of Baniyala with Djambawa Marawili.
Djambawa recounted how in the dawn of creation ancestral figures had moved up the coast, digging for edible roots as they went, creating springs and fresh water that bubbled out along the plains. He described how, when the first sun came up, these ancestor women turned into Brolga Cranes. As he sang the song several brolgas emerged from the mists and flew slowly towards the coast.
For me the great miracle of that morning rested in that moment of time – being there, seeing the living land and sensing the deep time so intimately linked with the life and art of the people who had lived in it for so long”.
Peter Hylands says:
“We would like you to meet Djambawa Marawili and to learn about his culture and people and in this film we take you back to East Arnhem Land and to the important homeland community of Baniyala, nestled on the shores of Blue Mud Bay.
Intimate knowledge of the land, sea and sky and what it contains, the spiritual understanding that the patterns of nature and ancestral beings are laid on this precious land and sea has sustained the Yolngu people of East Arnhem Land for countless thousands of years".
As the family hunt for fish and crabs by the old crabber’s camp on Blue Mud Bay, Joshua gathers up his catch while Djambawa looks for crabs and stingrays. This is a fleeting moment of relaxation for Djambawa and his family, his work as an artist, running the community, conducting ceremonies, chairing arts boards and the school, dealing with politicians from far away, all these things mean his working day is very long.
Ever vigilant over his land, always looking, always knowing what is going on, there were native title and sea rights to reclaim and defend, Djambawa has fought long and hard to reclaim the sea for his people.
What is so deeply moving in this creative, intellectual and complex world is the way that the Yolngu people have used art as sacred, as law and as protest.
A masterpiece of international art, the Yirrkala church panels painted in the early 1960s, were the first significant land rights statement by Yolngu people. There were to be many more.
Art was to be used yet again as a weapon to defend land and culture. The famous Bark Petitions of 1963 were created to demonstrate opposition and resistance to the Commonwealth Government’s exclusion of Yolngu people from decisions at that time relating to mining on traditional Yolngu lands.
In such a way and many years later, did Djambawa and a generation of elders express a statement of knowledge, law and ownership by creating 80 bark paintings to oppose intrusions into their lands. Today these masterpieces of art are kept in the collection of the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney.
At last victory came, in July 2008 the High Court of Australia confirmed that the traditional owners of Blue Mud Bay have exclusive rights to tidal waters overlying Aboriginal Land. The ruling was to extend far beyond Blue Mud Bay.
Yolngu law in Yolngu lands triumphant once again. The fight for rights continues.
In this film we join sculptor William Eicholtz on a journey of creativity. The journey is contemporary but reflecting ancient techniques as William creates an important and complex work, full of skill and meaning.
William Eicholtz is an artist who has taken figurative art from its traditional lineage, reforming and placing it firmly in current artistic dialogue. The male nude figure is a central theme throughout William’s work with the sculpture Courage, one of a series of distinguished and award winning works of art.
In 2005 William won Australia’s national sculpture prize the prestigious Helen Lempriere National Sculpture Award for The Comrade's Reward, a work in the form of a traditional allegorical garden sculpture.
Courage is a bronze sculpture made by using the ancient technique of lost wax casting. The sculpture is inspired by the iconic character of the Cowardly Lion in the story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and our hero’s contemplation of what it means to possess the courage to be yourself, no matter who you are.
“No sculptor works totally alone to produce a large public work and I have the privilege to work with team from J K Fasham who are sculpture fabricators and installers. Like the Perrin Foundry, Fasham are a family business with a genuine love of fine art and helping artists. The generations of knowledge and skill these businesses contribute are invaluable to an artist as they share their technologies to help an artist create their vision.
Together we did a lot of designing and thinking to make my ‘yellow brick road’ plinth a reality. The formwork in the little light wells, let alone the internal channels for electric wiring, was a feat of engineering in itself. I really think the up lighting from this crazy cobblestone path is going to make the sculpture really special and unique, as well as tell more of the Cowardly Lion story”.
The work, which honours the contribution, culture and diversity of the GLBTIQ (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer) communities, is dedicated to the legacy of Ralph McLean (1957–2010). Ralph, Australia’s first openly gay Lord Mayor (City of Fitzroy,1984) was a leading advocate for gay rights, social justice and the arts.
Courage was commissioned by the City of Yarra, a progressive inner Melbourne local government area with a diverse population with nearly 30 per cent of its residents born outside of Australia.
The traditional owners of the land in Yarra are the Wurundjeri people and we honour them here.
As the sculpture Courage now stands next to the Fitzroy Town Hall it proclaims the right of all members of Yarra’s community to be listened to, to be safe, and to be accepted. In a contemporary community we do not want to accept the idea of exclusion but to provide the means for minorities to express themselves because this leads to greater tolerance and understanding.
The film’s producers Andrea and Peter Hylands state:
“Just because a group is different and perhaps small in number, this should no longer be an excuse for intolerance, misconception and stereotyping and particularly no excuse for discrimination. Kindness and consideration are always the best path”.
space time performance is a film about the inflatable sculpture, A Sac of Rooms All Day Long, which was exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in an exhibition called Sensate: Bodies and Design.
Filmed in California this is a film about the inflatable sculpture A Sac of Rooms All Day Long, exhibited at SFMOMA in the fall of 2009. Join Rome Prize Fellow Alex Schweder and sound artist Yann Novak at SFMOMA during the installation of this inflatable sculpture.
In a five hour cycle A Sac of Rooms All Day Long, made of clear vinyl, rises from a puddle of plastic on the floor in a writhing performance, in which a 900 square foot house rises within the skin of a 500 square foot Californian bungalow. As the work inflates rooms start to steal space from each other, the rooms inside distort from something recognisable back to a jumble of lines as the rooms compete with each other.
space time performance was launched in Berlin by Tina Dicarlo.
“Schweder, a Princeton – trained architect turned artist and a Rome Prize Fellow is among a new group of emerging practitioners in which the gallery is evoked no longer as an area of display, but as a testing ground to formulate new paradigms of special practice. Here, architecture functions as a medium or special protagonist through which forms of agency maybe invented, negotiated, provoked, uncovered, eschewed, or displaced”. Tina Dicarlo– Writer, curator and founder of the Archive of Spatial Aesthetics, Berlin
A Sac of Rooms All Day Long : Join Alex Schweder and Peter Hylands during the installation of this major work. As the work is choreographed, sound artist Yann Novak joins Alex Schweder to complete the score for this enthralling work.
“Prior to 2005 my focus was to create architecture that reflected the bodies we have, rather than the bodies we wished we had. The exploration of these ephemeral bodies led me to make buildings, that, like our bodies, are time based. These time based works are in a category of performative architecture that I call buildings that perform themselves. All buildings, as time passes, are part of an ever changing performance of use, decay and regeneration".
Sac of Rooms All Day Long (detail), 2009, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Accessions Committee Fund Purchase; Alex Schweder. Photography: Ian Reeves.
Now comes the nerve racking process of unpacking the kiln. Gwyn Hanssen Pigott unpacks the wood kiln and selects the final compositions of her works. Here the results confirm the joy of making.
In this series of education resource films Gwyn Hanssen Pigott demonstrates each stage of the making process as she creates a series of porcelain wood-fired groupings of pots that are so highly regarded by collectors around the world.
In an educational setting this series of films should be used in conjunction with the award winning a potters film, also available on this website.
Pots glazed and dry, Gwyn Hanssen Pigott undertakes the delicate and time consuming task of preparing the wood kiln for the firing.
In this series of education resource films Gwyn Hanssen Pigott demonstrates each stage of the making process as she creates a series of porcelain wood-fired groupings of pots that are so highly regarded by collectors around the world.
In an educational setting this series of films should be used in conjunction with the award winning a potters film which is also available on this website.
Gwyn Hanssen Pigott demonstrates wheel throwing and turning and the altering of thrown forms.
In this series of education resource films Gwyn Hanssen Pigott demonstrates each stage of the making process as she creates a series of porcelain wood-fired groupings of pots that are so highly regarded by collectors around the world.
In an educational setting this series of films should be used in conjunction with the award winning a potters film which is also available on this website.
This is a complex and delicate task of selecting forms and colours. Gwyn Hanssen Pigott demonstrates the way in which the pots are glazed.
In this series of education resource films Gwyn Hanssen Pigott demonstrates each stage of the making process as she creates a series of porcelain wood-fired groupings of pots that are so highly regarded by collectors around the world.
In an educational setting this series of films should be used in conjunction with the award winning a potters film which is also available on this website.
In this series of films Gwyn Hanssen Pigott demonstrates each stage of the making process as she creates a series of porcelain wood-fired groupings of pots that are so highly regarded by collectors around the world.
In this film, join Gwyn Hanssen Pigott and Peter Hylands as they discuss the philosophy of making, of skills and creativity.
The five films that document the processes of making
If we look closely at John Wolseley’s paintings, we will begin to understand how nature works. Here laid out before us on the arches paper is the intricate weave of nature.
If we look closely at John Wolseley’s paintings, we will begin to understand how nature works. Here laid out before us on the arches paper is the intricate weave of nature.
"I then realised that was going to be my life’s journey, to try and make art that was about how we connect”.
My intention is to show how these rafts of different species weave in and out of one another, across the surface of my painting, rather as a passage of a symphony changes key and mood”.
In this case it is the plants and organisms, the fish and insects of a tropical creek. Each small creature’s life world interwoven to produce an ecosystem vibrating with life.
“I go to a place and I find some way of entering into it and then what I find there is a new way in which to describe it in terms of drawing and painting. There are different kinds of systems in which you can draw it. Ina magical way you can then really start to understand how the place works.
It is a funny way of putting it, how nature works, it is almost like I am talking about some kind of complicated machine. The really important thing for me, now that ecosystems are in collapse, the zeitgeist of any landscape artist, is that this is the most important subject we have to look at. This is the most important thing.
I think it all started in my childhood, my mother died young and I went off into the wilds around this farm, the hills and the meadows and the forests in the west of England on the edge of Exmoor. I sort of learnt to work within nature where I was this funny little boy who almost became a lizard or a fox”.
Birds sing and lions roar explores the relationship between the Maasai and the environment. As the drought deepens the men travel further and further in search of pastures.
Changes in climate have a direct and powerful impact on Maasai people, drought means the death of the animals that are so central to Maasai culture. Drought brings severe food shortages and has a powerful impact on the ability to maintain cultural traditions. Drought creates poverty and diminishes the likelihood of sending children to school and then on to higher education.
"The extraordinary biodiversity of the Rift Valley, the numerous species that surround the Enkang (Maasai village enclosure) are important as they provide a cultural richness unparalleled anywhere on earth".
Species survival is also critical for economic reasons as environmental tourism expands. Environmental pressures on Maasai society continue to grow in complexity and include drought, development issues and land use, conservation issues and a semi nomadic way of life, animal husbandry, population increases, new technologies, ecotourism and globalisation.
Keeping knowledge explores the ways in which Maasai believe they can preserve their precious cultural heritage while at the same time considering new ways of community development.
Drought has a severe impact on the community’s capacity to maintain traditions and crafts, yet it is these traditions and crafts that provide an opportunity to develop other sources of income.
Goats and cattle are a source of wealth in Maasai society and the animals are looked after with care.
Following a male circumcision, an important ceremony in life’s journey, the village gathers to sing and dance and celebrate the event. The women prepare the food as the men observe a goat slaughter.
Warning this film contains a sequence showing a goat slaughter.
We visit the house of Amos and Lilian and talk about the changing relationships between younger Maasai men and women.
Changing times explores some of the more confronting issues and challenges as Maasai society adapts and deals with the pressures of change. A group of Maasai girls recite a poem about the changes they want in their own lives, including the right to marry a man that they love and the opportunity to attend higher education.
This film contains discussion about female genital mutilation and other matters relating to sexual relationships in Maasai society.
The women prepare a donkey transport, the men light a fire and a Maasai bride leaves the village.
Enkang life documents the daily activities in Olmaroroi Village in Kenya’s Rift Valley. The women prepare a donkey transport, the men light a fire and a Maasai bride leaves the village.
Maasai women describe their way of life and we visit a Maasai hut, a medical dispensary and go shopping in a Maasai market.
In Maasai society women are responsible for carrying water, for cooking, looking after the children and building the huts. Maasai women create the intricate and colourful beadwork jewellery that make Maasai dress so distinctive.
Billy Missi was inspired by his culture and concern for the environment, the sea and islands of the Torres Strait. The art making of a new generation of Torres Strait Islander artists inspired Billy, who was determined to make art his career.
If you have ever been lucky enough to visit Moa Island in the Torres Strait you will know just what a beautiful place it is. We arrive by tinny at the jetty in Kubin.
There are two settlements here, Kubin and St Pauls, separated by a twenty minute drive that takes us through open forest country and past Moa Peak, the highest point in the Torres Strait.
The bright green of the island’s vegetation, the red soil, a spectacular contrast to the sparkling turquoise sea.
“I thought that art would make an impact in a way to change peoples’ thinking in expressing your own stories about heritage, your cultural heritage and environment. Art can also be used as a vessel for cultural awareness, education and all that”.
Shortly before he died Billy had asked us to take a series of photos of him as he wanted to create his own website. Little did we know at that time that our friend's life would be cut so short.
We will miss him always.
What is it like to have your portrait painted and why do people commission these paintings? How is the portrait constructed and how does the artist capture a likeness? How does history influence the art of portraiture?
We join Peter Churcher in Spain. In the studio there is a sense of stillness. In the narrow streets below, the shops, restaurants and markets of Barcelona are as busy as they have always been.
“A portrait in Barcelona was filmed during the early summer of 2011. These were days of golden sunlight, of food, of wine and of conversation. The only interruption to our tranquillity, the spontaneous economic protests, from the balconies and streets of Barcelona. And we visit the National Portrait Gallery in London to find out more about the art of portraiture”.
In A portrait in Barcelona Peter Churcher paints a portrait of Andrea and Peter Hylands. This film asks the questions; what is it like to have your portrait painted and why do people commission these paintings? How is the portrait constructed and how does the artist capture a likeness? How does history influence the art of portraiture?
A leading exponent of figurative painting, Peter Churcher’s paintings are of the human subject in portraiture and group figure narrative subjects.
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.
Warning to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers that the content of this film contains images and voices of Indigenous people now deceased.
In this film we meet Nyapanyapa Yunupingu. We begin our art journey at the VCA Print Workshop at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne and then we rejoin Nyapanyapa a few weeks later as she works at her art centre in East Arnhem Land.
Nyapanyapa's paintings are bold and vigorous and contemporary. The method of painting on bark is traditional. Her barks, painted with a brush of human hair using traditional ochres.
There are works on paper using contemporary materials, pens and archival paper and modern paints. There are the ever-changing light paintings. There are composite works of grand scale. There is print making too. Nyapanyapa’s paintings, her barks, works on paper and in electronic media (animation light paintings) are individual works, different and not sacred.
In the United States Nyapanyapa is recognised as one of Australia’s most exciting artists receiving commissions for large works from major American institutions.
In 2012 Nyapanyapa’s work was exhibited at the 18th Biennale of Sydney. In 2014, Nyapanyapa was included in Ian Potter Museum of Art’s The World is Not a Foreign Land, the exhibition will tour around Australia until 2016. A number of her works were selected for inclusion in Yirrkala Drawings (2014) at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
In 2014 the National Gallery of Victoria exhibited several works, including Nyapanyapa’s major ‘light painting’ animation. In 2011 a similar work was also exhibited at the Art Gallery of Western Australia as part of the Western Australian Indigenous Art Awards.
"In Arnhem Land another tropical day turns itself to sunset. The dry season fires of East Arnhem Land push their smoke across the setting sun. The red sky burns. In this place the Yolngu people, recognise that the land and the sea are connected in a single cycle of life. In this way so too are the philosophies and rigid rules of kinship connected. As the sun melts below the horizon, shellfish and crabs are gathered from the sea and shore. The campfires are burning".
Nyapanyapa’s art tells stories about her daily life, perhaps a visit to Sydney for an exhibition opening and often stories about her life in East Arnhem Land, where the search for food can become an exciting and dangerous adventure. There are the powerful and respected saltwater crocodiles, the ancient Baru, and there are introduced Asian Buffalo, as Nyapanyapa was to find out, dangerous and deadly if encountered on a journey.
The mines have also come to East Arnhem Land and to Yolngu country. The 1960s giant Alumina Refinery, a dreaming from another shore, has done its work and sits on Yolngu land near Nhulunbuy and in caretaker mode, its workers gone to whence they came. The bauxite mine continues, the red ore shipped elsewhere for processing.
In this film Nyapanyapa takes us on the long journey south to Melbourne and to the print workshop at the Victorian College of the Arts as she works with print maker Adrian Kellett.
Nyapanyapa is a remarkable artist. While humble in her work and international acclaim she is part of a talented and distinguished family, she is the sister of two Australian’s of the year.
Each year just one Australian citizen, since the award was introduced in1960, is selected to be the Australian of the Year, so to have two members of her family, her brothers, receive the award is remarkable.
As Nyapanyapa works on her print she thinks about her journeys with her sisters, journeys where the women gathered food that included shellfish and yams as they enjoyed their adventures together.
"Yolngu people know their lands and seas in great detail and the places where the food and water can be collected. They know which places are sacred. This knowledge and connection to place, created by thousands of years of habitation in this place.
European settlers have only occupied Australia for around one third of one per cent of the total timeline of the human habitation of Australia and even today, 235 years after European settlement, very few non-indigenous people would know how to survive in this bountiful land and where to find the yams and other food plants and where to find fresh water".
In 2008 Nyapanyapa won the very prestigious 25th National Aboriginal Art Award, she had also been selected for the prize in 2007 and 2009.
We meet at the Milingimbi airport at 9 am for our charter to the small community of Langarra. This is a very special invitation from community elder Ruth Ngalmakarra to take us back to her homeland.
Langarra is an island and home to a small group of Aboriginal people.
These northern Arnhem Land island communities like Langarra have strong artistic and creative cultures. The nearby and larger community of Galiwin'ku, with its population of around two thousand Yolngu people, was the birthplace of internationally famous musician Gurrumul Yunupingu. However beautiful Gurrumul’s work was, today is not for music, we are on our way to meet the weavers of Langarra.
We have chartered a plane from MAF and our pilot for this trip is Rene Don who is now based in Milingimbi.
Andrea and I are accompanied by Ruth and Milingimbi Art Centre manager, Zanette Kahler. Rene weighs each of us and our belongings with great care as the Langarra airstrip is short and has tall trees at one end of the runway. We are of course very polite and don't check to see what the others weigh. It is not getting down to the airstrip, it is taking off again that could be the problem. As it turns out the wind is not in our favour and it looks like we will need to take off towards the trees, rather than over the beach side of the runway, so every gram matters.
Soon our small plane is bobbing down the Milingimbi runway, then lifting lightly into the air and up over the township of Milingimbi and out over the sea. We watch the bush fires below with their wisping smoke stacks rising upwards into the blue sky.
Then out across open water with the occasional tinny (small aluminium boat) below us sparkling in the intense tropical light, local fishermen returning home.
There are the maze-like mangrove lined river systems that make you want to be down there to explore them, with all their small inlets and tributaries, from the air, appearing unspoilt by human hand. Here are the great Saltwater Crocodiles Crocodylus porosus with a stronghold in Northern Australia, there are turtles and a myriad of insect, fish and bird species. Below there are many things that bite.
Here too are the devastating introduced species, the cane toad, the water buffalo and the wild pig, all taking a vast toll on native species. One has to ask, given the remoteness of this place, how these species were allowed to get here in the first place? Take the water buffalo, introduced by early settlers, and we are now in one of its hotspots, populations in the north of Australia reached nearly 250,000 with intense damage being done trampling and grazing around species rich water sources. All of these introduced things with the potential to disrupt traditional ways of life and to destroy yet even more of Australia’s native species. All of which no doubt is a big headache for the Crocodile Island Rangers, now looking after the region’s environmental heritage.
The small settlement of Langarra is suddenly below us. The tree we sit under in the film clip is just beyond the most distant house and close to the tree line.
The shadow of our plane dances on the waves below. Flying low is always a joy as the patterns of the seabed and land pass beneath us. Then we sight the small settlement of Langarra ahead, we fly in across the woodland below to check the runway and circle down back out across the sea and then low over the beach as we touch down on the gravel runway.
Ruth is thrilled to be home and we are all thrilled to be with her on this return journey to homeland.
We unload the plane and we watch Rene roar the engine and take off again. We take the track that leads to the community. We say hello to everyone.
There is a small cluster of housing with open areas to sit under and a small school for the young students and their visiting teacher. The settlement is by the sea. The sandy beach stretches in a curve, the occasional Pandanus and Casuarina tree giving shade along the sand line.
The gentle waves wash on the shore. This is a beautiful place.
We walk on through the settlement and come to a large shade tree. Here we meet the weavers of Langarra sitting in the shade of the tree's branches. The artists are Margaret Rarru (Garrawurra) (winner 24th Telstra award for Bark Painting - a Ngarra body paint design), Helen Ganalmirriwuy (Garrawurra), Mandy Batjula (Gakamangu), Robyn Galitjpirr (Gakamangu) and Elizabeth Rukarriwuy. The children also sit here.
There had been a great deal of preparation for our visit, plants and roots had been gathered and a fire is burning and tin cans of water are steaming, all ready so that the artists can show us how they dye their fibres. The Pandanus has been laid out in various stages of preparation so we can see how it is prepared and readied for the dyeing process.
The next exciting thing that happens is that the bags and baskets completed in the weeks before our visit are brought out and tipped from large black plastics bags onto the matting around us. There are traditional dilly bag shapes and contemporary forms, a sensational commission from a New York buyer recently meant that Margaret found herself making a Madonna bra and Madonna bra basket, a work now of legend.
The weaving is delicate and skilled, the techniques handed down over generations.
We spend the next few hours with the weavers, sometimes in conversation, sometimes in laughter and sometimes watching the work going on around us. The time passes quickly and it would be possible to spend days here enjoying the skills and creativity of our newly found friends.
Somewhere in the distance we can hear a faint sound, it is Rene in his plane coming back to get us. It is time to go.
The chrysanthemum design is more traditional and that already existed in Kyoto, but this plum flower design pattern is my original idea.
The chrysanthemum design is more traditional and that already existed in Kyoto, but this plum flower design pattern is my original idea.
This one is the plum flower pattern of this basket and I have designed this pattern myself. The plum flower, when compared to the chrysanthemum is very different. The chrysanthemum design is more traditional and that already existed in Kyoto, but this plum flower design pattern is my original idea.
What I am doing is making this chrysanthemum flower pattern into something that is similar but yet different. So we have developed the plum flower pattern, this was achieved by trial and error. Each of the fine strips of bamboo was woven then I actually lacquered one coat all over the basket. We have a dryer, a container in which to dry the lacquered woven bamboo, and after lacquering one coat, it usually takes 24 hours to dry.
When I took the basket out of the dryer (this was my first design of this plum type and it represented two years work) I saw the surface was totally black. My wife and I were so disappointed we decided to make it again, but this time we thought very hard about how to do this?
We now lacquer each fine length of bamboo separately, these fine threads form the pattern of the plum flower. After brushing the lacquer onto each thread of bamboo we then wipe them with a cloth and put them into the dryer as separate threads.
After this I weave into the face of the basket, this methods avoids the face becoming black so that was the hard time. I had to come up with this idea to be able to solve this problem and also how to do this in the background and also how to see this red in the background or the reverse side of this weave and then again from the actual front. You can see very soft red coming out from the background of the soft demure plum flower and that is why the plum flower pattern that I had invented and submitted to the exhibition won the grand prize.
So as a craftsman I had to work hard, the background is less intricate and easier to work on but even so there are some failures and again to achieve a good result there is a great deal of trial and error.
I am the third generation for this bamboo craft and I have been involved since the time of my grandfather.
In Japan it is always a good idea to check out your neighbours, the discoveries are always remarkable.
When Hotta san’s master saw his recent award winning work, the master said, 'oh my god'. I think we know the feeling. So how does Hirokado Hotta do it and why does he do it? His bamboo works are indeed masterpieces.
I am the third generation for this bamboo craft and I have been involved since the time of my grandfather. My father and myself, so there are three generations. To keep the generations of bamboo craftsmen going I went to study in Kyoto and after three years of training I returned to Gifu, and then my father taught me much more about the craft. Today I am making the various bamboo objects, not as a craftsman but an artist.
I am a member of the Association of Artisans. While my name is Hirokado Hotta, I do have an artist’s name, Chikuyu-sai, which means bamboo play. So yu means to play, so play with the bamboo. That is my designation.
My grandfather began making and developing his skills as a bamboo artist, not as a trade or business but to be able to ‘play’ with the bamboo to create beautiful and artistic objects. So with that kind of desire I think of myself as an artist.
As a member of the Japan Traditional Craft Association I am known as Hirokado Hotta and I am not able to take the name Chikuyu-sai in Japan (in any public sense) until I become a living treasure and this may be too a big challenge or goal for me to do in my own life time.
Also the training in the bamboo craft is very tough, there was a lot of hardship, tough memories, but there are many good things at this point in time, it was very good for me to have become an artist. Because my father and the grandfather were able to carry on this tradition of bamboo and to hand this art down to me, I feel that it was very good and I am grateful for that now.
NOTE: Hotta san says he is san-dai-me (third generation) Chikuyu-sai. In this case san means three. Sai is a suffix for a coined name or pseudonym to mean a person purified to dedicate oneself to the sacred. Sai was considered to be significant when used in the pseudonyms of calligraphers, performers and artists.
We tour John’s painting and learn more about the plants that now come to life on its surface.
“These are yams, this red root is a yam and this is a climbing vine, a wonderful plant that has roots that swell out and this is what Mulkun paints in the most wonderful way – this is her version of this plant and it is such a wonderful idea as the plant curls around a tree in a spiral, so she shows it how it curls around the tree and climbs all the way up and here is me being a bit obvious just showing it climbing the tree.She goes a step further and shows it in the most incredible way, it is almost as if you are looking down at the tree. The sense of the circular motion in her artwork and the energy of the plant as it climbs up, she has really captured the wonderful movement of the plant." John Wolseley
In part two: Living forms of the landscape, we look at the living forms in John’s great painting and hear about the food plants that have sustained Yolngu life for thousands of years. The plants are not only useful, they are of great cultural significance and beauty, these things, so well described by the brush and pencil of two great artists.
What are the two old artists telling us here, what drives the enormous effort to create the works, John’s vast painting and Mulkun’s huge plant opus on bark? What they are telling us and what is so central to Mulkun’s passion about food and the wellbeing of her people, is to pass on her vast knowledge of the edible plants of her country to future generations. This is also the idea that John has so whole heartedly supported in his collaboration with Mulkun, the strength of which is so handsomely described in the exhibition and book, Midawarr ~ Harvest: The art of Mulkun Wirrpanda and John Wolseley.
“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. Nowadays people die when they are only young. There are very few people as old as I am. Children are given rubbish food to eat. It is killing us.” Mulkun Wirrpanda.
“So Mulkun lives, and lives off the land, in a place whose name is ancient and her clan hold the oral tradition of the Flood in their songs of Luthanba. This is eyewitness testimony of a geological event. The plants which she records here are the same foods that have sustained her people over this time. And yet in this very moment of history, at a time when that knowledge could now be recorded in writing, it is potentially coming to an end".
"The human genius to do ‘less for more’ allows deep-fried chips with chicken salt to become the ‘tuber’ of choice among young Yolngu. And these Yolgnu are dying faster than the ancient knowledge itself on a diet that results in obesity and diabetes. The market dictates that selling canned and frozen fatty, salty, sugary products offers the best return for the outsiders who sell to remote communities. And thus Yolngu Children are raised on Coke and red lollies".
"This collection of paintings is a love poem to those delicious foods which surround the children even as they are being poisoned.” Will Stubbs
Each of the two films contains insights into the philosophies and techniques John and Mulkun use to create the works that you will see at the Midawarr~Harvest exhibition.
The exhibition also contains a short film, which is a combined work with our friends from the Mulka Project, who completed the final editing. As always it was a joy to work with them.
Peter Hylands describes all those years of friendships in a distant land.
For John, the story begins in a very distant land and at the edge of Exmoor in Somerset. For England this is probably as country as country can get in a small and crowded land. Today we think of John in a very different landscape and in the nature of Australia.
As we fly across Australia as we have done so often over the last 45 or so years since we first visited the Australian Continent, I like the idea of looking down on the Australian landscape and imagining John Wolseley down there somewhere. His trusty 4 wheel drive loaded high with the essentials of the artist, the Arches paper, the water colour paints and the occasional good bottle of red supplied by son Will.
Looking down on this land, snug in the cabin of the aircraft, there is a sense of disconnection to place. We pass by unknowing of what is really down there, all a kind of metaphor for modern life.
So who cares? Why do we have to worry? Piece by piece and mile by mile, the vast array of plants and animals that we speed over are the building blocks of our world.
They provide the mechanisms that sustain us.
For John, down in and within that landscape, there is a very different experience.
The noise and colour of the Australian bush, a pandemonium of Parrots overhead cry out to the landscape below, the mournful call of the Australian Raven mingles with the powerful smell of Eucalypts in the summer heat.
A lizard darts across the sand and into a delicate mat of small plants. The land shimmers.
In this film we learn about the food plants of East Arnhem Land through the eyes, pen and brush of two great artists.
In 2009 Nomad Art Productions organised a cross cultural art project called Djalkiri: we are standing on their names. The project was based around the powerful and distinguished culture and environment of Blue Mud Bay in East Arnhem Land. It was here, and in Baniyala, that Mulkun Wirrpanda and John Wolseley met. And so it was, that in 2009, the artists from the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre in Yirrkala and a group of western artists worked together, made lasting friendships and learned from each other, all of these things culminating in an exhibition at the Nomad Art gallery in Darwin.
In these companion films, John Wolseley and Yolŋu elder Mulkun Wirrpanda describe the role that the food plants of East Arnhem Land have in sustaining the wellbeing of Mulkun’s people.
“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 also the idea that John describes and has so wholeheartedly supported in his great collaboration with Mulkun, the strength of which is so handsomely described in these films and the exhibition and book:
We are now at the end of 2017 and the friendship between Mulkun and John has continued to grow in strength (now brother and sister in the Yolngu way of these things). The Djalkiri project has also had a life of its own and has evolved to become a body of works, bark paintings and larrakitj from Mulkun and a large composite painting from John, that depict the teaming nature of the Northern Australian wetland system and specifically its food plants. The works of the two artists come together in the exhibition Midawarr I Harvest at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra.
Creative cowboy films’ role in all of this has been to document John’s painting as it evolved from early beginnings to completion. In all there were three trips to John’s studio as we travelled from Tokyo and on to John’s studio in the Whipstick Forest in Central Victoria. As for the cycle of life, John’s painting was created through the seasons, culminating in its harvest, the completion of the painting and its journey to Canberra and the National Museum of Australia.
In part one of this long journey, Painting as if through a veil, John describes the artists’ purpose in creating the body of works which sit so well together in their difference. We learn about Mulkun and John discusses the techniques and philosophy behind his own work. There are the usual engaging and amusing moments that we expect from John but there is serious purpose here that we should all come to know.
The exhibition also contains a short film, which is a combined work with our friends from the Mulka Project, who completed the final editing. As always it was a joy to work with them.
There is a lot to say and there is no one better to say it than John….
We meet John Wolseley in a pub in a town called Rainbow and travelled back to his camp in the middle of Wyperfeld National Park.
Contemporary art, science, geography and philosophy, and that is Smokers.
We met John in a pub in a town called Rainbow and travelled back to his camp in the middle of Wyperfeld National Park.
I would like you to picture Wyperfeld, an island of great biodiversity in an ocean of wheat.
The park is surrounded by a fence, inside the fence there are 520 different species of plants native to the park and more than 200 species of birds.
Outside the fence there is wheat.
John Wolseley is here to explore new ways of drawing and then discovers a settler’s fence in the desert.
Betty Churcher, Director of the National Gallery of Australia, launched the The smokers have taken the gold at Hillgrove, our once beautiful home in Victoria.
“In this film there is a wonderful shot of John Wolseley talking about the diversity of Australia’s flora as he is crawling around through these lovely little desert shrubs, pointing out how wonderfully different each one is to the other. This is a wonderful film that will get you right into the mind, eye and heart of an artist”. Betty Churcher
Knowledge, painting and country, the third film in this series about the culture of Western Arnhem Land, takes us on a journey to meet the region’s most respected elders.
WARNING This film contains the names and images of Aboriginal people now deceased.
Aboriginal society respects its elders as the guardians of cultural knowledge and law. Community elders are important role models and educators and as the custodians of Aboriginal culture and lands, their responsibilities include passing on the stories and techniques of painting to younger generations of Aboriginal people.
This passing on of knowledge has helped Aboriginal people retain a deep respect and understanding for the country and the nature that surrounds them.
Peter Hylands: You probably know this land like the back of your hand?
Jacob Nayinggul: Yes, I do.
Peter Hylands: So you have spent many times…
Jacob Nayinggul: Yes since I could walk. I understood from my father and grandfather, that is where they started off singing all these areas into my head, and I never forgot.
Peter Hylands: Country is so important, isn’t it? Can you describe some of your feelings about your country?
Jacob Nayinggul: Yes, I feel a responsibility all over my territory and my traditional land. The land where we are standing at belongs to me and Donald Gumurdal, Oenpelli and the Red Lily area. But we go a little bit further to look at more of my country about 40km further up where I was walking, going hunting with my families. This land is my country my father and my grandfather and my grandfather before him.
Kore karrihdi bolkkime kunred kondah ngarrewoneng ngaye Jacob Nayinggul dja Donald Gumurdul ngarrewoneng kunred manu Oenpelli [Kunbarllanjnja] [Gunbalanya] dja Red Lily. Kaluk karribolknan kubolkwern Ngarduk kunred 40km kabalre mankabo dja kaddum kore ngahrey kore kunred ngadberre kunred ngabbard.
And now we are here at this billabong. The name off this billabong is Wulk [Welk] billabong, there is nothing no sacred site here just free land and there is another billabong the name of the billabong is Inkiw, my country.
This is my Traditional Land and I love my country. This land belongs to me and my father and all my children and grandchildren. I have stayed in my country for many, many years. All my grandfathers are all gone, passed away when I was a little boy. I got culture and my land, there is no other land that belongs to me and my children.
If white man comes and asks me for land I say no, this land belongs to me and my children because I love my country, it’s been here from generation to generation but when I pass, gone dead, all this land belongs to my sons and daughters and all my grandchildren.
They will look after the country, my sons and daughters and all my grandchildren when they grow up and become man and woman and have more children. They will look after the country and the land belongs to them.
Dja mawah ngayime ngaburrbun kore kunkodj ngardduk Kondah kore karriwam kore manlabbarl kahlabbarlyo kabolkngeyo Wulk [Welk] manlabbarl minj njale kayo kadi larrk Dja yungki malabbarlkimuk kabolkngeyo Inkiw ngardduk kunred ngawornhnan kubolkwern ngardduk kunred.
Traditional Land kore ngabbard dja mawahmawah ngayime ngadberre kunred kore mandjewk dja mandjewk kore ngahni bu ngangudjmakni bu nawu ngabbard dja mawah ngandibawong birridowerrinj rowk wanjh ngabbard ngamarneyolyolmeng ngalbolkbukkabukkang Wanjh manbu kunred nganwakbuyinnguneng ngardduk.
Bu balanda kamre kabolkmang kunred ngardduk wanjh balehngakurduyime ngaye dja wurdwurd ngardduk minj ngaburrbun dja ngadjalyime mahni kunred ngardduk ngabbard dja mawah ngahyime ngandibolkyibawong Wanjh ngabbard yimeng mahni kunred ke dja wurdwurd ngudberre rowk manbu kunred yibawon minj kubolkwern kunred ke bedberre birribuyika bininj.
We should all listen carefully.
Translations by Andrew Managku, Gunbalanya, NT, 2010
Since deep time, Aboriginal people have painted images on the rock escarpments of the Stone Country.
In this film we meet the creation mother, Yingana, painted on the rock surface of Injalak Hill, in the intellectual and global powerhouse that is Arnhem Land.
These paintings are the markers of place and connection to country, they are the images of law, knowledge and power.
Today, these important records of culture and society are passed on by the artists from Injalak Arts and Crafts, to both younger generations of Aboriginal people, and now beyond, to all the corners of the earth.
In this film we meet the artists as they work at Injalak Arts and Crafts and we find out why art centres are so important to Aboriginal communities.
Filmed in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia, The brush sings, is the first in a series of three films about the art and culture of Western Arnhem Land.
Then art centre director at the time the film was made, Anthony Murphy had this to say:
“I think there is a need for a lot of people in the wider community, the European (Balanda) white people to see or understand something that we may have lost and maybe there is a great attachment to. Something metaphysical, or something, the land, culture, a belief system, you know there is the term ‘dreaming’ and the art that is produced by these artists is some little way of us may be getting a piece of that”.
The passing on of knowledge from generation to generation has helped Aboriginal people to retain a deep respect and connection to the country and nature that surrounds them.
As the cycle of the seasons of the Kunwinjku unfold, as they have done for thousands of years, the humidity and heat build and usher in the wet season. The brush sings was made during Kurrung, the hot build up season before the rains come. This is a time of fire and a time when the air is full of the scent of blossoms.
“I have spent a lot of time watching Glen Namundja paint his highly detailed, complex and meticulous works. What is remarkable is how works of such complexity are created in the way that they are, it is almost as if Glen has pictured every line in every place before the painting is started”. Peter Hylands
Robert Jacks is recognised as one of Australia’s most significant abstract artists. During his early career, Robert was influenced by the pioneer of British abstract art, Ben Nicholson.
In the 1960’s Robert Jacks AO was determined to live and work in New York, this film explores that journey and the journey home again. Back in contemporary Melbourne, join Robert Jacks and Anna Schwartz as they set up the exhibition Never Ending Project at Anna Schwartz Gallery.
Born in Melbourne in 1943, Robert trained in sculpture at Prahran College and painting at the RMIT. He held his first solo exhibition in 1966 and was represented in The Field in 1968, the exhibition chosen to launch the new National Gallery of Victoria in St Kilda Road.
He has remained true to the style of his early works, partitioned and bordered colourful abstracts.
Robert lived in Canada and New York from 1969 to 1978, teaching and exhibiting, including at the New York Cultural Centre and the Whitney Museum Artists’ Resource Centre.
Robert held more than 60 solo exhibitions in six countries throughout his career and was included in numerous group exhibitions. He lived and worked in Central Victoria. Robert died in 2014.
Eric Westbrook was an important figure in Robert's life. In my many discussions with Robert he told me about the early days of his career in Melbourne:
“Also the director of the National Gallery of Victoria, Eric Westbrook, bought a painting for the National Gallery of Victoria and he dragged out some of his mates who were trustees to buy paintings by my opening show, so the show was virtually a sell-out.
I think it was the beginning of a lot of things then. The Antipodeans who were around then and friends and enjoying their success and there were very few artists then. They filled a vacuum and then there was my generation, the next generation of young artists who were a mixed bunch of artists and then the National Gallery of Victoria opened in St. Kilda Road. The new building then and that opened with the Field Show, which was an exhibition of artists of my generation that painted in an abstract geographic manner”.
The world can often seem a small place and as it turned out Eric Westbrook also became a friend of Andrea and I some forty years after the opening of the Field Show. Eric was a not infrequent visitor and dinner guest to our house in central Victoria, itself filled with art, and we enjoyed Eric’s company and knowledge of the art world in the closing years of Erics life.
The Japanese summer of 2019 and we take you on a journey around Gifu, the beautiful and mountainous prefecture in Central Honshu.
As part of our work in Japan we encourage visitors to not only travel to the most famous and visited places, but to also explore and to discover another Japan, away from the best known places.
In this way the traveller will enter a land of endless discoveries.
In this film Frankie Kelly and Bob Burruwal tell the stories of Bardangarrh-Bardangarrh and the message stick and the fire stick.
Frankie: He makes a light like a shooting star, light comes out of his body like a star. This one is my dreaming, we call it Bardangarrh-Bardangarrh, all the way from Boebirri, my country.
Bob: The message stick arrived and then they would set off and turn up at Boebirri.
The art of Bob Burruwal and Lena Yarinkura is both beautiful and complex, this is work that tells a series of stories, Djarngo, laws, natural forces, animals, objects, emotions and phenomena that shape Bob’s and Lena’s religious beliefs.
Andrea and I had been working with Bob and Lena, linguist Murray Garde and the staff of Maningrida Arts & Culture in Arnhem Land to record the stories that gave form to the artwork in the exhibition Kunkamak Ngarrwoneng (Our house of culture). The idea in making these films was to hand this knowledge to present and future generations. In doing so helping to instruct young people in ceremony, rituals, dance, song, art making and Kuneand Rembarrnga ways of being.
"We went and made all these objects and they all have stories and remind people what these stories are and we make the artwork because they have stories. And we can tell these stories".
These films were made in Ankabadbirri and in Maningrida and surrounds and in the beautiful country surrounding Ankabadbirri.
We should all note just how carefully and beautifully Bob Burruwal and Lena Yarinkura have cared for their country. What a staggeringly beautiful and peaceful place it is.
In this film Bob Burruwal and Lena Yarinkura tell us the story of Bongolinjbongolinj and the gift of a song.
The art of Bob Burruwal and Lena Yarinkura is both beautiful and complex, this is work that tells a series of stories, Djarngo, laws, natural forces, animals, objects, emotions and phenomena that shape Bob’s and Lena’s religious beliefs.
Andrea and I had been working with Bob and Lena, linguist Murray Garde and the staff of Maningrida Arts & Culture in Arnhem Land to record the stories that gave form to the artwork in the exhibition Kunkamak Ngarrwoneng (Our house of culture). The idea in making these films was to hand this knowledge to present and future generations. In doing so helping to instruct young people in ceremony, rituals, dance, song, art making and Kuneand Rembarrnga ways of being.
"We went and made all these objects and they all have stories and remind people what these stories are and we make the artwork because they have stories. And we can tell these stories".
These films were made in Ankabadbirri and in Maningrida and surrounds and in the beautiful country surrounding Ankabadbirri.
We should all note just how carefully and beautifully Bob Burruwal and Lena Yarinkura have cared for their country. What a staggeringly beautiful and peaceful place it is.
In this film Bob Burruwal and Lena Yarinkura tell us the story of Ngalbenbe, the sun story and the Djarngno sacred site.
The art of Bob Burruwal and Lena Yarinkura is both beautifuland complex, this is work that tells a series of stories, Djarngo, laws, natural forces, animals, objects, emotions and phenomena that shape Bob’s and Lena’s religious beliefs.
Andrea and I had been working with Bob and Lena, linguist Murray Garde and the staff of Maningrida Arts & Culture in Arnhem Land to record the stories that gave form to the artwork in the exhibition Kunkamak Ngarrwoneng (Our house of culture). The idea in making these films was to hand this knowledge to present and future generations. In doing so helping to instruct young people in ceremony, rituals, dance, song, art making and Kuneand Rembarrnga ways of being.
"We went and made all these objects and they all have stories and remind people what these stories are and we make the artwork because they have stories. And we can tell these stories".
These films were made in Ankabadbirri and in Maningrida and surrounds and in the beautiful country surrounding Ankabadbirri.
We should all note just how carefully and beautifully Bob Burruwal and Lena Yarinkura have cared for their country. What a staggeringly beautiful and peaceful place it is.
My father taught me. He told me never to forget this story. He said do not lose my story, hold on to it.
In this film Bob Burruwal and Lena Yarinkura tell us the story of the Wurun fish spirit and the trapping story.
The art of Bob Burruwal and Lena Yarinkura is both beautifuland complex, this is work that tells a series of stories, Djarngo, laws, natural forces, animals, objects, emotions and phenomena that shape Bob’s and Lena’s religious beliefs.
Andrea and I had been working with Bob and Lena, linguist Murray Garde and the staff of Maningrida Arts & Culture in Arnhem Land to record the stories that gave form to the artwork in the exhibition Kunkamak Ngarrwoneng (Our house of culture). The idea in making these films was to hand this knowledge to present and future generations. In doing so helping to instruct young people in ceremony, rituals, dance, song, art making and Kuneand Rembarrnga ways of being.
"We went and made all these objects and they all have stories and remind people what these stories are and we make the artwork because they have stories. And we can tell these stories".
These films were made in Ankabadbirri and in Maningrida and surrounds and in the beautiful country surrounding Ankabadbirri.
We should all note just how carefully and beautifully Bob Burruwal and Lena Yarinkura have cared for their country. What a staggeringly beautiful and peaceful place it is.
Just like those old people, they used to tell us those stories, we used to listen to them. The older generations passed it on to us.
In this film Bob Burruwal and Lena Yarinkura tell us why passing on the old stories is so very important. It is a way of keeping culture and knowledge alive for future generations. All of it, too precious to lose.
The art of Bob Burruwal and Lena Yarinkura is both beautiful and complex, this is work that tells a series of stories, Djarngo, laws, natural forces, animals, objects, emotions and phenomena that shape Bob’s and Lena’s religious beliefs.
Andrea and I had been working with Bob and Lena, linguist Murray Garde and the staff of Maningrida Arts & Culture in Arnhem Land to record the stories that gave form to the artwork in the exhibition Kunkamak Ngarrwoneng (Our house of culture). The idea in making these films was to hand this knowledge to present and future generations. In doing so helping to instruct young people in ceremony, rituals, dance, song, art making and Kuneand Rembarrnga ways of being.
"We went and made all these objects and they all have stories and remind people what these stories are and we make the artwork because they have stories. And we can tell these stories".
These films were made in Ankabadbirri and in Maningrida and surrounds and in the beautiful country surrounding Ankabadbirri.
We should all note just how carefully and beautifully Bob Burruwal and Lena Yarinkura have cared for their country. What a staggeringly beautiful and peaceful place it is.
In this film Bob Burruwal and Lena Yarinkura tell us the story of Mono, the bones of two people and their dogs who die of thirst.
The art of Bob Burruwal and Lena Yarinkura is both beautiful and complex, this is work that tells a series of stories, Djarngo, laws, natural forces, animals, objects, emotions and phenomena that shape Bob’s and Lena’s religious beliefs.
Andrea and I had been working with Bob and Lena, linguist Murray Garde and the staff of Maningrida Arts & Culture in Arnhem Land to record the stories that gave form to the artwork in the exhibition Kunkamak Ngarrwoneng (Our house of culture). The idea in making these films was to hand this knowledge to present and future generations. In doing so helping to instruct young people in ceremony, rituals, dance, song, art making and Kuneand Rembarrnga ways of being.
"We went and made all these objects and they all have stories and remind people what these stories are and we make the artwork because they have stories. And we can tell these stories".
These films were made in Ankabadbirri and in Maningrida and surrounds and in the beautiful country surrounding Ankabadbirri.
We should all note just how carefully and beautifully Bob Burruwal and Lena Yarinkura have cared for their country. What a staggeringly beautiful and peaceful place it is.
Julie Gough creates the work Locus for The Biennale of Sydney, the tension builds as deadlines approach.
We walked on a carpet of stars is a film about the work of artist Julie Gough. We trace the links and references to Aboriginal Tasmania and cross the bridge to the heart of contemporary culture at the Biennale of Sydney.
Central Australia is a place of extraordinary power and beauty, the art from this place is a mirror, a spiritual reflection of beliefs, of culture, of country, of its plants and animals.
The film Bush plum is a contemplation of the work and country of Angelina Pwerle, a visual poem, capturing the imagery and connection between painting and country. For Angelina, her bush plum dreaming paintings reflect “the whole thing, all of country”.
In this documentary Alick Tipoti describes his culture, recalling the legends of his land through music and dance and art making. We travel to his home island of Badu in the Torres Strait.
Artist, Alick Tipoti, is a leader in the resurgence of Torres Strait culture. He is the first Torres Strait artist to have been selected to exhibit at the Biennale of Sydney (2012). Alick takes with him on his artistic journey the recognition and blessing of elders from the Torres Strait Islands that enable the artist, through his artistic ability and cultural knowledge, to produce his contemporary versions of the art of the Torres Strait.
For the past twenty years Ian Waldron has been creating a visual record of life on the Gulf of Carpentaria, in particular the life of people on his traditional Kurtjar country.
Ian’s paintings of contemporary life on the cattle station Delta Downs, his personal and clan totems, and landscapes depicting the hugely diverse geography of the area, have been making their way to exhibitions in Australia, the United States and Germany. His artistic exploration of his people and place has not only brought him individual recognition, but also contributed to a growing awareness of Indigenous culture on the Gulf.
His traditional homeland is a constant source of inspiration from which he draws the subject matter for his artworks. There is honesty in his portrayal of country, and everyday contemporary life is portrayed with equal sensitivity as historical and traditional stories.
For this artist and his people, labour, industry, ownership in the Western sense, and Native title have all been integral to ongoing connection to land. Ian Waldron’s practice is not just inspired or about his country, it is deeply rooted and connected with contemporary events and people, with his own practice feeding into the growth of the Bynoe Art Centre where many more people are now creating Gulf art.
Travelling to Normanton each month for a week, time is divided between the studio and field trips. Packing up the billycan, tucker-box and art materials and travelling to different locations on country is a break for everyone. Sometimes time is spent by the Gilbert River drawing and fishing, out on country looking for timber for sculpture or taking photographs. These excursions are times of exchange between artists and mentor, creating space to share culture and life experience.
Ian Waldron recognises the importance of being outside the studio to building a relationship with his countrymen and fellow artists.
“Time on country puts us on another plane of interaction, common ground where we can all be more relaxed”.
It is also the best environment for knowledge to be exchanged. Natural cues abound and storytelling is spontaneous.
“Having the artists record the narrative of their works on paper in the studio is like pulling-teeth but take them onto country and talk flows freely”.
You can find out more about Ian Waldron by reading Katrina Chapman's article 'Celebrating Kurtjar culture' in the First Nations issue of the creative-i magazine. The text above is an extract from Katrina's article.
NOTE: This film contains images of a cattle muster
A performance work in 3 acts filmed in Indonesia and India. In these performances the physical and metaphysical meet.
One of the most influential artists within the development of Indonesian contemporary art, Arahmaiani is an active voice for the marginalised and repressed in society. Her installations, performances, paintings, essays and video art are significantly shaped by the need to produce a new social consciousness based on her research of social, political and cultural issues.
The second of two films about the Australian artist potter Stephen Benwell, this film was released in May 2019.
In this film Stephen describes his career as an artist potter. It is a personal history, a history which also describes Stephen’s journey through an accomplished art life, through time and place, with friends and colleagues.
This film will be of particular interest to students studying ceramics.
We begin at the installation of Stephen's latest exhibition at Niagara Galleries in Melbourne - Stephen Benwell: Ceramics and Paintings 2019.
Stephen Benwell A still life is the first of two films that document Stephen’s life as an artist-potter.
In this first film Stephen discusses the ideas and philosophies that have made him among the most significant artists working with ceramics today. There is also a journey to new media and new ways of communicating art.
Ken Thaiday takes us on a remarkable and personal journey to Erub in the Torres Strait.
Ken Thaiday Snr has contemporised the culture of headdress making, mobilising his work with complex systems of strings and pulleys so his machines move in ingenious ways, and as one with the dance's choreography, as the shark's mouth opens and then snaps shut. The works are grand in scale but composed in the greatest detail with many small components.
"Brakes on hard – the engines of our little plane roar – brakes off, sling shot, we lift quickly off the short runway, the wind takes control. Then we are looking at the blue green sea below, with its coral cays and reefs. As we approach Erub we can see the joy on Ken Thaiday face, the joy of coming home".
Erub is a place where music and dance are important foundations to cultural practice and creativity, once more on the rise through a revival in artistic activity.
One Australia’s most senior and inventive Torres Strait islander artists, Ken constructs mobilised artefacts, which today are exhibited in major art galleries and museums around the world.
In part two of The sea, the feather and the dance machine, we join the islanders for a feast and prepare to leave the island and make our way back to the Australian mainland.
Ken has contemporised the culture of headdress making, mobilising his work with complex systems of strings and pulleys to make his dance machines move, it might be the opening and closing jaw of Ken's shark headdress or the flapping wings of a large seabird made for an important ceremony.
For Ken, his beliefs and his culture are what make him an important figure as a Torres Strait artist. As a senior man, he has a very important role in passing on cultural knowledge to younger generations of Torres Strait Islanders.
An award winning documentary about ceramic artist Gwyn Hanssen Pigott.
Gwyn was recognised as one of the world’s leading ceramic artists and is particularly well known for her series of still life collections of porcelain vessels.
The film shows Gwyn making, glazing and firing her work. The film also includes sequences of a wood firing and the unpacking of the kiln.
Gwyn’s skill and dedication to a potters life gave her the opportunity to develop working relationships and friendships with some of the 20th century’s most significant potters including; Ivan McMeekin, Ray Finch, Bernard Leach, Michael Cardew, Katharine Pleydell-Bouverie, Dame Lucie Rie, Ray Finch, Alan Caiger-Smith and Mick Casson.
Gwyn was central to the development and history of contemporary ceramics in the 20th century and still retained a remarkable presence in the 21st century ceramic movement. Gwyn died in London in July 2013.
Gwyn continued to exhibit internationally, with exhibitions since 2000 including Galerie Besson London; Tate St Ives, UK; Garth Clark, New York; The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh; Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney; Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane; Christine Abrahams Gallery, Melbourne and a major retrospective Gwyn Hanssen Pigott: a survey, National Gallery of Victoria.
Public collections include the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra.
