Detail: Mul Bowl. 2018, Mandy Matjula Gaykamungu, Milingimbi Art and Culture, Woven Mul Bowl, 340 x 310mm Warning: Readers should be aware that this document includes names and images of deceased people that might cause sadness or distress to Aboriginal readers.
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
F O R E WO R D
traditional reliance on found or natural materials, is also continually evolving. With The Alchemists, we have a fascinating opportunity to appreciate how contemporary fibre art is shaped by economic and ecological influences, by change and the adoption of new methods and new materials, which are engaged in specialised and localised ways.
HON. BEN WYATT MLA
Treasurer; Minister for Finance; Aboriginal Affairs; Lands
Weaving describes an action, and it also connotes a tradition imbued with cultural heritage. Distinctively and regionally diverse, the Indigenous fibre art of Australia is nonetheless expressive of a community of practice, unified by the amazing ability of practitioners to transform raw materials into creative expressions of story and place.
Indigenous fibre art in the Northern Territory, for example, is widely known for its vibrant colours and extraordinary skill. What is less known are the developments and exchanges between fibre artists in the Top End and external influences which have seen changes and developments, some subtle, some major, in fibre art practice throughout Australia. This exhibition aims to strengthen our awareness of contemporary fibre art as a presentation of creativity and skill, revealing beauty, individuality, and refinement, embodying the knowledge of ecological processes and of Country.
Connected to women’s traditional knowledge of plant materials and harvesting, fibre art is inextricably linked with the seasonal availability of resources and the transformation of raw materials into dyes, yarn and threads. The works, and their creators, perform a most special mixture of artistry and alchemy.
It is also a timely reminder of how knowledge, developed over generations of interactions between Indigenous people and the land, can make valuable contributions to contemporary sciences such as conservation and restoration; the study of ecological processes; and sustainable resource use.
Accordingly, The Alchemists showcases the recent work of artists and art centres from Anindilyakwa, Bula’ bula, Elcho Island, Merrepen and Maningrida in the Northern Territory, Milingimbi and Gapuwiyak in East Arnhem Land, Pormpuraaw Art Centre in Cape York, Baluk Arts in the Mornington Peninsula, and closer to home, Martumili Artists in the Pilbara. The exhibition also features the work of Tasmanian artist Vicki West, Cairns-based artist Grace Lillian Lee and Janine McCaulley Bott of Western Australia.
Seeing Aboriginal culture flourish throughout Australia is something all Australians should celebrate and the State Government has demonstrated its commitment to preserving Aboriginal culture right here in Western Australia and the ability of Indigenous peoples to celebrate and share it; to recognising Native Title Rights; to making histories visible; and to supporting contemporary Aboriginal arts, including fibre arts.
The exhibition offers a survey of weaving as an artistic practice which, while remaining connected to its
1
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Photograph by Rosita Holmes.
Embodying the interconnected nature of Aboriginal culture, fibre art is a powerful medium for education, cross cultural exchange and learning, as well as exploration of imagination, inventiveness and beauty.
For it is through the richness of Australian weaving, skill, innovation, varied approaches and diversity of cultural heritage we gain an insight into language of Country, and the practices that inform and sustain it. It is through the resourcefulness and imagination of these artists― these alchemists―we become alive to the extraordinary gifts of our home. Detail: Bula’bula weavings in pandanus with natural dyes. Evonne Munuyngu and Mary Dhapalany. Photograph by Taryn Hays, 2019. 2
TT HH EE
A A L L C H E E M M II SS TT SS
INTRODUCTION
and as such, during the past decade, we have shaped our activities, partnerships, and networks to demonstrate leadership, and aspire to a higher level of excellence and influence. FORM’s approach is embedded in research and development, and designed to create legacy projects that employ a full visual arts spectrum including, but not limited to, craft, design, visual art, and digital media.
LYNDA DORRINGTON Executive Director; FORM building a state of creativity
Much of FORM’s programming focuses on exploring intercultural dialogue and building respect and recognition for contemporary expressions of cultural diversity and heritage. Our work seeks to collaboratively support cultural maintenance and advocates for Aboriginal design and artistic development which engages participating artists fully and equitably at every stage and process.
The need to cultivate a more sophisticated approach to fibre art and artists has become increasingly acute over recent years, not least due to radical innovations being achieved by artists in so-called ‘traditional’ fibre art practices all over the world. Acknowledgement of the extraordinary breadth of this practice, and the need for better critical and economic recognition was part of an important discussion in Perth in early 2006. Cultural Strands and Rhythm Weaves was a two-day symposium and workshop devised and hosted by FORM to support the Western Australian opening of a nationwide survey exhibition of fibre art, Woven Forms: Contemporary basket making in Australia.
Since 2010 our Land.Mark.Art program has delivered an unprecedented level of professional development and leveraged significant income for Aboriginal artists across the State who wish to enter the public art sector. Landmark exhibitions such as Yiwarra Kuju: The Canning Stock Route Project (2012) have been acquired by the National Museum of Australia, and subsequent exhibitions Marlbatharndu Wanggugu (2015), Painting Power (2017), Earth Matters (2017), and Pujiman (2018), were collected by the National Gallery of Australia, the New Museum, The Stokes and Wesfarmers Collections.
Though these voices were diverse, they nonetheless articulated interwoven themes: the enduring tradition and technique of fibre art; storytelling embedded in practice; and the extraordinary opportunities for innovation and versatility the art form constantly provokes. These voices also highlighted the challenges for Australia’s Aboriginal basket makers and fibre artists who, not only competing for market share and critical attention in a global context, were also combating ‘the art market’s relegation of ‘craft’’ for their artform.
While our primary responsibility is to Western Australia, we believe our experiences, programs, and the connections they foster have validity beyond State boundaries, not only in an ambassadorial capacity for Western Australia, but also strategically as part of Australia’s international creative profile. We view our work as integral to both a global and local conversation,
3
TT HH EE
A L C H H EE M M II SS TT SS
Nearly a decade and a half on, as FORM showcases a national survey of contemporary fibre art with The Alchemists, this time focusing on the established and evolving practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, it is clear that the themes of Cultural Strands are still resonant, relevant, and representative of the art form’s ingenuity and resourcefulness. And while weaving and fibre art―whether sculptural, conceptual or functional―is as responsive to traditional and innovative techniques as it ever was, there is evidence too that the practice is assuming more political, social and environmental significance, as well as drawing more critical attention for its aesthetics.
Creative practices in fibre art are continually being expanded; and globally, Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists are leading the way. Their practice and their aesthetic reframes millennia of dialogue with the natural environment into a contemporary context. As such, those of us who marvel at the calibre and integrity of the fibre art displayed in The Alchemists will be responding to a tacit invitation to participate in the expansion of this new dialogue: that ‘of Western and Indigenous knowledges, [of] two systems of thought and action that are united to solve ecological, economic and cultural issues’. A dialogue in which, for all our sakes, we must invest.
Batjbarra (water chestnut scoop) | 2019 Mary Dhapalany Bula’bula Arts Pandanus and bush string with natural dyes 900 x 550mm 4
TT HH EE
A A L L C H E E M M II SS TT SS
Natural dye process at Anindilyakwa Arts. Photograph by Ben Ward. Image courtesy of Anindilyakwa Arts.
5
TT HH EE
A L C H H EE M M II SS TT SS
6
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
M AT E R I A L C O N N E C T I O N S TO ARNHEM LAND
A key identifier of connection to Country in this exhibition is often the material from which an object is made. Many of the techniques are shared across Australia. Usually these are natural materials but the ghost net works are structured from man-made material that has travelled to their Country on ocean currents and then becomes part of everyday life. With the addition of fabric dyed with local, natural dyes; the baskets from Anindilyakwa make quite a statement. For the Arnhem Land works the primary materials for the bodies of works are pandanus, vine, sand palm and kurrajong. A range of other plants are used for colour such as pogonolubus reticulatus (yellow), heamodorum brevicaule (brown), and petalostigma pubescens (black). In addition, colour is derived from ochres found on country. A massive amount of knowledge about all of the materials is necessary to find them, collect them, prepare them and use them to make the works now seen on the gallery walls.
DR LOUISE HAMBY
ANU College of Arts & Social Sciences
The Alchemists: Weaving Knowledge contains many works from the Top End of Australia and in particular, Arnhem Land. I have had the privilege of being able to work in this part of Australia with Aboriginal people over the past quarter of a century. An appreciation of the Country and the people came through my initial investigations of historic baskets from Arnhem Land in museum collections around the world. Originally, I fell in love with the detailed, ochred twined baskets and thought of one day doing a comparative study of them with painted works from the Plains Indians in America. In hindsight that was doomed for failure as one would need a couple of lifetimes of study and working with people to achieve any meaningful results. Looking at amazing objects in a museum storeroom with no windows, dust, insects or dogs is a different experience than the reality of making things in the bush with knowledgeable women and experiencing the environment through all of your senses. Yet the museum, the gallery or your own home is often the final stop in the journey a work makes from its beginnings as raw material sourced in Country, and is the place where most Australians get to see these works.
In The Alchemists, the material that is most desired, used and versatile from the Top End is that of pandanus spiralis. This palm grows luxuriously by or in the water and is at its peak during the growing wet season when the centre crown of leaves is supple. These are the ones that are captured with either a traditional hook made from a tree branch or the more recently available reinforced steel rod bent at the end. The gathering and preparation of the leaves has not changed over time but the treatment of the prepared pandanus, and the forms made from it have developed alongside the continuation of classic forms seen in the rock art from western Arnhem Land.
7
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Also featured in The Alchemists is jungle vine or malaisia scandens, found in forests. Its dominant use is for the making of items that are utilised in the water: fish traps and large working baskets. Bonnie Burangarra from Maningrida made the classic fish trap that has remained the same for as long as people can remember. There have been changes in the way in which some artists have approached the form and concept of the fish trap; making it no longer usable like the one made by Burangarra. The ones made by Mary Dhapalany and Audrey Marrday from Gapuwiyak are constructed primarily from dyed pandanus. This material would not withstand being in the water rendering these works totally art objects but with meaning drawn from long traditions. The baskets and sculptural pieces from Arnhem Land feature pandanus. The classic twined basket form is exemplified in the work by Doreen Jinggarrabarra Olsen from Maningrida and Mary Dhapalany from Ramingining with no colour other than the natural dried pandanus. Before the advent of missionaries to Arnhem Land colour on baskets was normally applied to the surface with ochres like the one made by Helen Ganalmirriwuy from Milingimbi. This is not a common practice today. One most often sees twined baskets made using pandanus that has been dyed like the ones by Mary Guyula from Gapuwiyak and Evonne Munuyngu from Ramingining. An alchemy occurs in the dyeing: a most transformative instance occurs when the yellow dye from pogonolubus reticulatus instantly turns red with the addition of wood ash. A practice that is now highly popular is the use of baskets that are all made with pandanus that has been dyed black that we see in the works of Mandy Batjula Gaykamungu. She obtains the rights to do this from her aunt Margaret Rarru Garrawurra, who has made them famous. 8
Other changes have occurred in the basket domain. The dominance of the coiling technique used to make classic twined basket forms is one evolution. We see this in the range of baskets from Gapuwiyak. Linda Guyula includes gumnuts on the rim of her coiled basket made in a classic form and in the Baby Basket with its multi-technique cover made by Vanessa Daymirringu. A big change in the art market has been the emergence of sculptural forms spearheaded by women from Maningrida and their kin across Arnhem Land. Forms used for ceremonial purposes have been made using the same materials but these quirky animals like Vera Cameron’s bird and echindas by Gloreen Campion have been a hit in the marketplace. The concepts for forms like the Yawk Yawks by Jolanda Rostron and Anniebell Marrngamarrnga come from their ancestry. Regardless of whether they are made in a flat form with dyed pandanus like Marrngamarrnga, or the painted three-dimensional ones by Rostron - they have connections to Country. This gathering of works from Arnhem Land in The Alchemists gives us a glimpse of the creative activity that is happening currently in the Top End. It gives me pleasure to see the things I fell in love with from museum collections appearing now in baskets like the one made by Galamirriwuy. Equally exciting are the forms that I did not know about when I first came to Australia. They have a common link in Country through their materials which makes them unique.
T H E
Bathi Mul | 2018 Mandy Batjula Gaykamungu Milingimbi Art and Culture Pandanus and native fig root. 230 x 90mm
A L C H E M I S T S
Mindirr | 2017 Mandy Batjula Gaykamungu Milingimbi Art and Culture Pandanus and native fig root. 150 x 110mm 9
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Woven Mat | 2019 Mary Dhapalany, Bula’bula Arts Pandanus with natural dyes 2200mm 10
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Woven Mat | 2018 Mary Dhapalany Bula’bula Arts Pandanus with natural dyes 800mm 11
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Angidjatjiya Milarr (jungle vine fish trap) | 2018 Bonnie Burangarra Milingimbi Art and Culture Jungle vine 1300 x 300mm 12
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
13
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Jin.gubardabiya | 2019 Helen Kamajirr Stewart Maningrida Arts and Culture Pandanus with natural dyes 4750 x 1720mm 14
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
4 1
7
3 5
2
6
1 | Mindirr | 2017 Margaret Rarru Milingimbi Art and Culture Pandanus and natural fibres 240 x 140mm
3 | Dilly Bag | 2019 Evonne Munuyngu Bula’bula Arts Pandanus and natural fibres. 190 x 130mm
5 | Mindirr | 2019 Evonne Munuyngu Bula’bula Arts Pandanus and natural fibres. 260 x 120mm
2 | Mindirr | 2017 Mary Dhapalany Bula’bula Arts Pandanus and natural fibres. 120 x 150mm
4 | Mindirr | 2019 Julie Yikaki Bula’bula Arts Pandanus and natural fibres. 250 x 140mm
6 | Mindirr | 2019 Mary Dhapalany Bula’bula Arts Pandanus and natural fibres. 210 x 120mm 15
7 | Mindirr | 2019 Evonne Munuyngu Bula’bula Arts Pandanus and natural fibres. 130 x 90mm
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
10
8 13
11
9 12
8 | Bidiyunawuy Mindirr | 2017 Helen Ganalmirriwuy Milingimbi Art and Culture Pandanus and natural fibres. 260 x 130mm
10 | Dilly Bag | 2019 Mary Dhapalany Bula’bula Arts Pandanus and natural fibres. 240 x 200mm
12 | Dilly Bag | 2019 Evonne Munuyngu Bula’bula Arts Pandanus and natural fibres. 240 x 160mm
9 | Mindirr | 2019 Evonne Munuyngu Bula’bula Arts Pandanus and natural fibres. 260 x 120mm
11 | Mindirr | 2019 Mary Dhapalany Bula’bula Arts Pandanus and natural fibres. 160 x 130mm
13 | Gunga Bathi | 2018 Margaret Rarru Milingimbi Art and Culture Pandanus and natural fibres. 360 x 150mm
16
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
17
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Fish Trap | 2018 Audrey Marrday Gapuwiyak Arts Pandanus palm 1100 x 350mm 18
T H E
Yawkyawk | 2018 Anniebell Bindalbindal Marrngamarrnga Maningrida Arts and Culture Pandanus with natural dyes 2280 x 800mm
A L C H E M I S T S
Yawkyawk | 2018 Anniebell Bindalbindal Marrngamarrnga Maningrida Arts and Culture Pandanus with natural dyes 2120 x 820mm 19
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Detail : Yawkyawk, 2018. Anniebell Bindalbindal Marrngamarrnga Maningrida Arts and Culture. Pandanus with natural dyes. 2280 x 800mm. 20
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
C U R AT O R I A L N O T E
The Alchemists is not comprehensive of the broad practice of Aboriginal weaving across Australia, yet it presents recent imaginings of the form, colour, textures, and subject matter of fibre art from key art centres and artists of Maningrida, Elcho Island, Bula’bula, Gapuwyiak, Milingimbi, Anindilyakwa, Pomparruaw, Martumili, and Baluk Arts, as well as individual fibre arts practitioners from Grace Lillian Lee’s exquisite and potent interpretation of grasshopper weaving, to Kieren Karritpal’s translation of inter-generational weaving onto canvas, Noongar weaver, Janine Mcaulley Bott’s Western Australian series of endangered bush animals and Vicki West’s jacket vine kelp and flax installation.
SHARMILA WOOD
Curator; FORM, building a state of creativity
Aboriginal fibre arts practice represented in The Alchemists emerges from a repository of social and cultural knowledge that enables artists to transform raw materials into a range of aesthetic forms. Artists perform creative alchemy as they fuse ethnobotanical knowledge of their particular Country with chemistry, creativity, and individual expressions into various woven forms that move fluidly between social change and transformation, renewal and innovation. Artworks remain distinctly connected with place, and the broader cultural ecosystem, as part of a web of intergenerational knowledge, personal practice, social interaction, Country and language.
Artist’s hold an in-depth understanding of the tactile way materials can be stretched, bent, shaped, pulled and pushed. The ideas and culture that find expression in fibre art are informed by a relationship between artists, material and place. In an era with a growing awareness about the impact of climate change, and the mobilisation of movements against mass production and industrialised processes, the woven form as an expression of local community production and involvement has lessons in ingenuity, and sustainability, highlighting the interconnectedness between individuals, communities, and the environment. Often guided by relationships between women weavers across the generations as teachers, guides and mentors, the culture of weaving is also about relationships and our responsibility to each other.
In The Alchemists, fibre refers to predominantly natural materials of pandanus, sand palm, kurrajong, kelp, jungle vine and palm fronds, but also represents artists’ creative adaptation of ghost nets, as well as found and manufactured materials. Weavers translate fibre into various forms, from baskets, to sculptures, and wall works in intriguing and surprising ways that can be seen in many dimensions, and alternately hang, hover, and float. The scope of Aboriginal fibre art is vast, and diverse, often distinctively regional as representative of a shared communal cultural identity informed by local places and botany on Country, yet highly individualised, with each artist demonstrating their own technique and vision of weaving in their chosen medium.
21
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Waterholes | 2016 Lulu Laradjbi Maningrida Arts and Culture Pandanus with natural root dyes 2500 x 2800mm 22
TT HH EE
A A L L C H E E M M II SS TT SS
Ngamaru Bidu walking Country near Parnngurr, 2018. Photo by Gabrielle Sullivan, courtesy of Martumili Artists.
23
TT HH EE
A L C H H EE M M II SS TT SS
24
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
MARTUMILI ARTISTS Pilbara
Martumili Artists was established in late 2006 and supports Martu artists in Kunawarritji, Punmu, Parnngurr, Jigalong, Warralong, Irrungadji (Nullagine) and Parnpajinya (Newman). Baskets are made by Martu women who live in communities to the east of Newman, including Punmu, Kunawarritji, Parnngurr and Jigalong, as well as in Newman, Parnpajinya and Irrungadji (Nullagine). This style of coiled basketry was developed in the Western Desert in the 1990s and taken up by Martu women around 1999. Leading Martu fibre arts practitioner Nola Taylor says that basket weaving was so popular amongst Martu women that it “spread across the desert like a waru (fire)�. The baskets are primarily made from minarri grass (Amphipogon caricinus), which the women collect when they travel across their homelands to visit family, attend ceremonies, look after Country and gather bush tucker. Each basket is built up through wrapping fine bundles of grass in brightly coloured wool and then stitching each round on to the previous one. Martu women have developed a distinctive style of basketry and individual artists continue to develop new designs and incorporate novel materials (including steel, wire and wood) into their work. Text courtesy of Martumili Artists
25
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Basket | 2019 Ngamaru Bidu Martumili Artists Minarri grass and wool 330 x 350mm 26
T H E
Basket | 2019 Ngamaru Bidu Martumili Artists Minarri grass and wool 570 x 550mm
Basket | 2018 Kumpaya Girgirba Martumili Artists Minarri grass and wool 450 x 460mm
A L C H E M I S T S
Basket | 2018 Elizabeth Toby Martumili Artists Minarri grass and wool 540 x 570mm 27
Detail: Basket, 2018. Ngamaru Bidu, Martumili Artists, Minarri grass and wool, 450 x 460mm.
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
28
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
ABORIGINAL FIBRE A R T I N AU S T R A L I A : A V I S UA L VO C A B U L A R Y T O I D E N T I T Y, T I M E A N D P L AC E .
Functional and ornamental, ceremonial and sculptural: fibre art in Aboriginal culture is ancient and innovative, reforming itself in myriad ways across Australia’s remote art centres and at the hands of some of its most groundbreaking practitioners to arrive at a contemporary space which finds it at once an act of activism and reclamation, a celebration of identity and a translation of culture. At Bula’bula Arts in Ramingining, artists are experimenting with modern takes on an ancient ritual. Artists from the centre have collaborated with Spanish designer Alvaro Catalán de Ocón to produce suspension lampshades inspired by traditional woven Yolngu mats, and with Sydney homeswares designer Koskela to create pendant lights. “Bula’bula weavings are works which have ritual and ceremonial significance mostly,” centre Manager Hilary Crawford said. The weaving is also shared work, harvesting grasses, dying and sharing colours. “They’re a force of nature,” Crawford said. “They work together.”
KIM KIRKMAN
Writer; FORM building a state of creativity
In Nauiyu, a small Northern Territory community on the banks of the Daly River, 25 year-old Kieren Karritpul translates to canvas the handwoven nets crafted by his maternal line for generations from merrepen palm to collect barramundi from the creek. Flowing lines of acrylic on linen drawing an enduring family practice into a new form. “I paint about weaving because my mother, my grandmother and my great grandmother are really strong weavers,” Karritpul said. “My mum, she’s a weaver and I am putting it on canvas, telling a new way from the old way.”
Boisdale artist Cassie Leatham is a keeper of 11 traditional weaves, sharing and sustaining ancient cultural practice. “I’ve gone into the Pilliga and I’ve taught weaving there. I’ve brought weaving back for those people,” Leatham said. “There were only two weavers and now there are about 58 weavers in that community alone. It keeps the young girls, and some young lads as well, enthralled with the ways of our old people, continuing that practice so it can be passed on and used by future generations.”
In Cairns, on the tropical far north coast of Queensland, artist, designer and curator Grace Lillian Lee twists and loops reels of bright cotton webbing into bespoke pieces of wearable art; sculptures of ceremonial body armour which connect with her Torres Strait Islander heritage and its culture of palm frond weave adornments: from frond skirts to grasshopper ornaments. “It’s been a great way for me to connect and be proud of who I am and where I came from but also to let that be known by the wider community,” Lee said. “It’s really enabled me to be able to share my stories and struggles within that space in a really beautiful, tactile way.”
Leatham is part of Baluk Arts, a 100 per cent Aboriginal owned and operated art centre on the Mornington Peninsula. Baluk’s Manager, Nicole Chaffey, said work at the centre sought to frame history within a contemporary context. “We’re taking old ways of
29
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
doing things into today to demonstrate that Aboriginal culture is dynamic and evolving and fluid,” Chaffey said. “We’re here, we’re now, we’re contemporary; we’re not stuck in a point in the past.”
At Anindilyakwa Arts on Groote Eylandt, artists are winding their ghost net baby baskets in plant dyed fabrics, performing a symbolic repossession of the sculptures with traditional textiles.
In southeast Victoria, possum skin is important as a cultural material and as a way of communicating, so many of Baluk’s artists incorporate possum into their work in some way or other. Likewise the materiality of kelp, which is also an important cultural object for medicinal and nutritional purposes, and for its utility – threaded into pouches to carry fresh water. “Incorporating that with beautiful fine threads like silk and cotton and linen and feathers that have been found or procured or gifted is really important,” Chaffey said. “New work that is coming up at the centre incorporates feathers from black swans, tawny frog mouths, lorikeets and all sorts of other beautiful little things. We like to honour them in death.”
“Ghost net weaving on Groote Eylandt is very different from the ghost net weaving that happens in other parts of the gulf country and across Australia,” Anindilyakwa Arts Manager Aly De Groot said. “The artists get the ghost nets from the Anindilyakwa sea rangers and they have their own style where they wrap the ghost net with the plant dyed fabrics. I see that as being like wrapping a wound with a bandage, reclaiming this terrible environmental threat with a love of Country and the colours from the land.” In Aboriginal fibre art, tradition and invention are concurrent. Tapestries of meaning that go beyond the decorative, giving a visual shorthand to identity, time and place. In the alchemy of weaving, merging and entwining harvested grasses, bush string or plastic netting into vessels for carrying fish, water, ornament, meaning; are stories of the people who craft them, and the changing forces that are shaping their lives. In the reinvention and interpretation of the practice of weaving across Australia are signifiers of the universal things that matter.
In Pormpuraaw, on the west coast of Cape York Peninsula, artists are transforming the wreckage of plastic fishing nets found washed up on their beaches into art as activism: coiled and plaited into marine animals, some with debris in their stomachs, highlighting the impact of these ghost nets on the environment. Celebrated Pormpuraaw artist Syd Bruce Short Joe describes the process as “taking something terrible and turning it into something beautiful and meaningful.¹” “(Ghost nets) drift on the currents, continuing to catch and kill fish, dolphins, whales, sea turtles and other protected species, many of which are our totems,” Short Joe said. “Taking this terrible form of pollution and recycling it into art is important to raising awareness.” Pormpuraaw Art and Culture Centre manager Paul Jakubowski said the quality of the sculptures had been instrumental in launching artwork onto the world stage. “Ghost net sculptures have proven to stand out,” he said. “Part of their success has been the environmental message these works share.”
Drawn from a series of interviews with artists and art centres at Darwin International Art Fair. 1.
30
Excerpt from a speech by Syd Bruce Shortjoe, launching Pride in Authority, an exhibition series at The Tanks Art Centre held as part of the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair, 2018.
TT HH EE
A A L L C H E E M M II SS TT SS
Body Armour - A Weave of Reflection Pink and Orange, 2018. Photography by Wade Lewis. Image courtesy of Grace Lillian Lee.
31
TT HH EE
A L C H H EE M M II SS TT SS
32
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Body Armour - A Weave of Reflection Black and White | 2018 Grace Lillian Lee Cotton webbing 750 x 900mm 33
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Detail: Body Armour - A Weave of Reflection Black and White | 2018. Grace Lillian Lee. Cotton webbing. 750 x 900mm. 34
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
GRACE LILLIAN LEE Artist, Curator & Designer Queensland
Known for her bespoke cultural designs and contemporary takes on traditional craftsmanship, Grace creates wearable interpretations of traditional Torres Strait Island fibre art. Creative director of this year’s Darwin Art Fair fashion showcase From Country to Couture, Grace’s designs are held in major collections including the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. She leads First Nation Fashion and Design, a national mentorship platform for remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists. “I am an artist, designer and curator from Cairns. I’m a creative and a storyteller of my own stories. I studied fashion design at RMIT and in my final year studying I took my grandmother back to the Torres Strait, somewhere she hadn’t returned for 57 years. It was a moment in my life where I really explored and connected with a part of my lineage that I was not privy to in my upbringing. I like to call it a hidden generation because I feel like my dad was brought up identifying as Chinese and not as a Torres Strait Islander. I connected with family and I learned how to weave and from there I wanted to explore it in contemporary fabrications. That trip made me question everything and the best way I knew how to express myself was through creativity. I wanted to explore and celebrate my identity through fashion. I connected with a local artist in Cairns, Uncle Ken Thaiday Snr. We have family connections, and he taught me how to palm frond weave. Within Torres Strait Islander culture we decorate and adorn spaces and our bodies with palm fronds as part of ceremony, ornamental pieces from palm
35
frond skirts to little ornaments of grasshoppers. Whether it be for weddings or tombstone unveilings, the palm fronds are predominant within our decoration of space and bodies. I’ve developed the grasshopper or prawn weave through my practice, through studying fashion design and through the help of my mentors, into different fabrications, proportions, shapes, sizes and forms. I create body sculptures because I want to start the discussion about diversity and who is embodying these pieces. The pieces themselves are created out of cotton webbing from the inside of garments. I buy them in 50 metre reels and there are 15 metres to a weave, so the sculptures entail hundreds of metres of cotton webbing. For me it was natural in its development because it’s something that we embody. It’s been a great way for me to connect and be proud of who I am and where I came from but also to let that be known by the wider community. It has enabled me to be able to share my stories and struggles within the space in a really beautiful, tactile way so other people can engage and learn more about the Torres Strait. A lot of people don’t realise that there are so many different nations, so many different dialects within our nation, and I wanted to engage with that in a playful, beautiful way that people could just look at and find beauty in and learn more about.
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
I think weaving especially in Australia, is really important. Weaving offers time for us to sit down and just connect with our Country and with each other and talk and share. There was a moment where I was worried about what I was doing because it’s become a business – but I spoke with my elders and other weavers, master weavers from the Torres Strait and they reassured me that it’s all about sharing. Sharing our culture with the rest of the world. They’re proud of me being able to talk to the world and learn more about this part of me that wasn’t known for such a long time. I feel really privileged to have access to a technique that was taught to me and my elders and to be able to share that with the world. To be a part of that face representing the Torres Strait. I think that’s what all of my practice is about. Not only acceptance that we are developing as a nation and our identity is developing and changing, but also this whole idea of preservation of culture. Trying to bring that and connect it back to the next generation. “
Body Armour - A Weave of Reflection Black and White | 2018. Grace Lillian Lee. Cotton webbing. 750 x 900mm. 36
TT HH EE
A A L L C H E E M M II SS TT SS
KIEREN KARRITPUL Artist Northern Territory
I’ve lived in Daly River all of my life. I usually do painting and screen printing. Since I was maybe five or six. As I grew up I did painting throughout my life. I paint about weaving because my mother and my grandmother and my great grandmother are really strong weavers. I paint for my family and my career. When I was at school I used to paint and my teachers used to tell me you have to keep painting so I just did painting.
Kieren Karritpul is an artist and arts worker from Nauiyu Nambiyu, Daly River, in the Northern Territory. Winner of the inaugural Youth Award at the 31st National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards in 2014, Kieren works across the mediums of painting and textile design, often depicting the weaving practice for which is maternal line, inducing his mother Patricia Marfurra, is renowned. This “old way and new way” working relationship between mother and son reveals a shared commitment to sustainability and community. Patricia Marfurra’s woven and Kieren Karritpul’s painted tributes honour the teachings of their ancestors and demonstrate the way strong cultural connections in daily life can be maintained. Kieren’s artwork is held in collections at the National Gallery of Australia, the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and the Museum of Cultural History, Norway.
I won the Youth Award at the Darwin Telstra NATSIAA Awards in 2014. It was a screen printing on fabric and then a couple of years after that I did some more paintings and I was highly commended. I paint with family members, mother, brother, aunties. I just want my paintings and artworks to be out there, telling stories. My mum, she’s a weaver and I am putting it on canvas, telling a new way from the old way.”
“My name is Kieren Karritpul. I’m from Daly River. I work in Merrepen Arts. When I was growing up I used to hang around my mother, grandmother and my great grandmother Karritpul. I used to sit and watch them painting, doing weaving, going out bush with them. All of my family are talented artists; my aunties, grandmother and my great, great mother are artists. Since I was born I got told from my mother, couple of old people, talking to me in my ear about being an artist.
“In Daly River artist Kieren Karritpul’s art there is no escaping the woven lines of inspiration. The woven form is both subject and metaphor in his work, and also to some extent part of their process.” - Maurice O’Riordan, Woven Lines for Nomad Art
37
TT HH EE
A L C H H EE M M II SS TT SS
Fish Net 2 | 2019 Kieren Karritpul Merrepen Art Centre Acrylic on linen 1275 x 710mm 38
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
39
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Merrepen Yerrgi - Mat Mer | 2019 Kieren Karritpul Merrepen Art Centre Acrylic on linen 2200 x 1880mm Wauipan 2 | 2019 Kieren Karritpul Merrepen Art Centre Acrylic on linen 1240 x 1040mm
40
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
41
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Walupan (Fishing Net) | 2019 Patricia (McTaggart) Marfurra Handwoven and naturally dyed Merrepen palm. 1200 x 2100mm 42
TT HH EE
A A L L C H E E M M II SS TT SS
Collecting Kelp Nannette Shaw. Image courtesy of Baluk Arts.
43
TT HH EE
A L C H H EE M M II SS TT SS
44
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
WO M E N S ’ M AG I C AND ALCHEMY IN THE SOUTH EAST
The persistent resourcefulness which transforms raw materials into things of such beauty and utility is a sort of ancient magic which flows from their fingertips. Bull kelp used to dominate the exposed rocky coasts of the Southern Ocean and Bass Strait. As the globe warms it retreats further from the coastline, but is however still readily collectible after big swells. In addition to being a rich source of nutrition, medicine and raw material, the great kelp forests are prized as an essential ecosystem for the “pearls” of Tasmania, the maireener shell.
NICOLE CHAFFEY Arts Centre Manager Baluk Arts
The South Eastern region of Australia is an area rich in traditional expression and the women artists of Baluk Arts are ensuring the perseverance of a distinct, contemporary cultural aesthetic.
Once gathered from the beach or harvested from the water, the thick, fleshy leaves of the kelp would be moulded and stitched to form a bladder in which fresh water could be stored and carried. Tasmanian elder Auntie Nannette Shaw helps to keep the tradition of the kelp water carrier alive. Once disposable utilitarian objects; these carriers have been elevated now to precious, sculptural pieces, highlighting an undeniable evolution of traditional knowledge to contemporary art practice. And this knowledge has been generously shared by Auntie Nettie (as Shaw is known) to the women of Baluk Arts, who took part in a weeklong series of kelp-crafting workshops with her in 2017. New and innovative techniques of working with kelp have crept into the practices of several Baluk artists in the years since.
These women are the custodians of old crafts and ancient knowledge. They share this knowledge and craft with the next generation, visitors, and the world, often at great personal cost. These are women who have taken control of their destinies, and yet they wander a contested space. The Mornington Peninsula has an ancient geographical and cultural relationship with Tasmania. They were at one time connected by a land bridge that cut across the Bass Strait. The Bunurong people and the palawa (a Tasmanian term for ‘first people’) shared the human cost inflicted by like invaders. Women and children were taken, enslaved and dispossessed. Female history has forever been punctuated by periods of extreme trauma, but it follows then that healing occurs by gradual, inter-generational reclamations of culture, knowledge and ultimately, power.
Tradition is at the core of Lisa Waup’s creativity. Her practice elegantly incorporates body adornment, objects of comfort and aesthetic beauty, and of spiritual health and healing. Hers are artefacts of personal ceremony, deeply symbolic connections
45
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
The work of these women is a memorandum. They affirm their place and their voice in the world.
to her ancestors and a seemingly magical process of transforming and combining elements into something new.
“we are here; we are exploring...”
Gillian Garvie harnesses a turbulent personal history, weaving stories and symbolism of Country into a diverse weaving practice. Materiality carries her narrative of country New South Wales through the use of flax, sheep’s wool, feathers, wire and uniquely, alpaca fleece.
Their culture is dynamic, contemporary and everevolving… and they invite you to connect with their lived experience: personal stories told through these ancient arts.
Ancestors rest upon their shoulders as our women walk Country. Collect their materials, they interact with them; softly, slowly transforming these natural things into mystic items of lore and culture. The process is empowering, and can become a life’s passion. Master weaver Cassie Leatham is a keeper of the weave. She remains true to traditional materials and for her, it is the form that transmutes into contemporary narrative. Pipeclay, harvested in the wild by hand, retains the fingerprints of now, while supporting a simulacrum of midden substances and other organic materials intrinsic to her journey as an educator, community worker and sculpture maker. The unity between these women is found within the finding. Bower-birding; the devoted collection of distinctive elements, is at the core of each practice. Within woven grasses you will discover fine threads of silk and linen, kelp, yarn, sinew, bark. Beautiful plumage from fallen ones adorn the vessels. These are connections to totemic beings or reference to ceremony. These creatures are often given as gifts to the artists, who honour them in their death.
Bull Kelp Water Vessel | 2017 Nannette Shaw Baluk Arts Bull kelp and woven material 90 x 70mm
46
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Detail: Bloodlines, Lisa Waup, 2019. Woven fibre and found objects. Baluk Arts. 130 x 120 x 40mm. Photography by Taryn Hays, 2019. 47
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Bloodllines | 2018 Lisa Waup Baluk Arts Woven fibre and found natural materials 130 x 120mm 48
T H E
Oceans Deep | 2018 Gillian Garvie Baluk Arts Woven fibre and found natural materials 95 x 75mm
A L C H E M I S T S
Blue Bird | 2018 Lisa Waup Baluk Arts Woven fibre and found natural materials 100 x 80mm 49
Passing Down Knowledge | 2018 Gillian Garvie Baluk Arts Woven fibre and found natural materials 125 x 80mm
T H E
Shared Culture | 2018 Lisa Waup Baluk Arts Woven fibre and found natural materials 160 x 150mm
A L C H E M I S T S
Meeting of the Waters | 2015 Lisa Waup Baluk Arts Woven fibre and found natural materials 120 x 110mm 50
Family | 2018 Lisa Waup Baluk Arts Woven fibre and found natural materials 70 x 120mm
TT HH EE
A A L L C H E E M M II SS TT SS
CASSIE LEATHAM Master Weaver Victoria
Cassie Leatham is a traditional artefact maker, weaver, and cultural educator from Boisdale, Victoria. Her work has been acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria, Koorie Heritage Trust Collection and Melbourne Magistrates Court of Victoria and is exhibited nationally and internationally.
the currents and berries. I use kangaroo grass, lomandra, dianella. Aunty Regina Wilson, we work together and she sent me a lot of sand palm down and pandanus so I’ve used that as well. I am a seasonal forager, so I forage and I harvest natural grasses, bull rushes, kabungi, common reed leaves, and then I process it and then weave with it. I’ve had my work in a lot of galleries all around Australia and overseas. My main work is in the National Gallery of Victoria and I exhibit through the Koorie Heritage Trust.
My name is Cassie Leatham, I am from Taungurung - Woiwurrung and I live on Gunaikurnai country. I live in Boisdale, a small rural town in Gippsland and I do a lot of different varieties of making. I am a weaver, a sculpture maker and a cultural educator. My art practice is all traditional artefact making with natural materials. I’ve been doing this all my life.
My dad’s Aboriginal and my mum is a nonindigenous person, but she was always working with cane and bamboo, soaking it in water and I just loved the techniques she came up with. I am really inspired to be like her. She did a lot of art and craft and then over the years, growing up, I saw elders making their fishtraps, and they’d be talking and you’d get a little bit of knowledge from them but I actually wasn’t shown how to weave. I’m self-taught by watching. That’s how I absorbed it all. I took it upon myself to continue that practice now to teach others as well. Weaving fish traps and fish nets and eel traps and even crating the eels that go into the traps.. I wove a massive big bunjil, the wedge tailed eagle, and that’s at the National Gallery of Victoria and I’ve also done one other crow, which is my totem, so I’ve actually woven birds.
I’m a master weaver and keeper of 11 traditional weaves. I’ve gone into the Pilliga and taught weaving there and I’ve brought weaving back for those people there. There were only two weavers and now there’s about 58 weavers in that community alone. I love doing cross cultural work. It keeps the young girls, and some young lads as well, enthralled with the ways of our old people to continue that practice so it can be passed on and used by future generations. Sometimes I do adapt into modern materials, but my passion is keeping it real. Keeping my culture alive with traditional techniques of my old people. I like to go out and harvest all the grasses, eco dye with
51
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
I love my culture and the journey that I am on at the moment. I just feel empowered by meeting people. I do a lot of workshops with non-indigenous people. I teach my own mob first, but then I love to go out in communities and educate as many people as I can about bush plants and grasses and weaving and sculpture work. We’re walking on one country, we’ve got to walk together. Let’s keep our culture alive and strong.
Weaved Pipe Clay Vessel | 2018 Cassie Leatham Baluk Arts Woven fibre and found natural materials 190 x 140mm
52
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Untitled | 2019. Vicki West. Jacket vine kelp and flax 3000 mm 53
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
VICKI WEST Artist Tasmania
Vicki West is a Tasmanian Aboriginal artist of the Trawlwoolway people from the North East coast region. Her arts practice includes large scale installations incorporating multiple elements, smaller scale sculptural works, jewellery, textiles, painting and new media. She draws on traditional Tasmanian Aboriginal cultural practices and materials to create contemporary artworks that explore and celebrate cultural survival in the face of continuing colonial myths of the extinction of her people. Works such as Kerliggener-leewunna and In my name which exhibited in Defying Empire, the third National
Indigenous Art Triennial, scrutinise the ongoing struggle between traditional culture and the effects of colonisation. Work exhibiting in The Alchemists brings together land and saltwater scapes exploring the provision of precious resources by these places and is made from dodder vine, a Tasmanian native which is often seen as a pest in its own environment. The work symbolises colonial attitudes towards Tasmanian Aboriginal people and explores issues including home and homelessness, connections with place and reclaiming culture and language. 54
TT HH EE
A A L L C H E E M M II SS TT SS
55
TT HH EE
A L C H H EE M M II SS TT SS
Vintage Bush Truck, 2019. Janine McAullay Bott. Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe. Found objects and woven material. Photograph by Jessica Wyld.
56
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
JANINE MCAULLAY BOTT Artist Western Australia
Janine McAullay Bott is a Noongar artist based in Perth, Western Australia. She weaves large and small-scale work that reflects the inspiration she draws from her environment- both the natural world and urban context. Janine uses locally sourced palm fronds, grasses, reeds and found materials, including pieces sourced from kerbside green collections. From her life size Vintage Bush Truck to her series of endangered Western Australian
bush animals, Janine’s weaving is always animated with character, life and personality. Janine began her fibre arts practice during the time she lived in Hawaii and continued to embrace the medium as a way to explore her heritage upon returning to Australia, where weaving became an act of memorialising and connecting with her ancestors, and her Noongar mother.
Phascogale | 2019 Janine McAullauy Bott Jacaranda seed ears, palm fronds, gum-nut eyes and emu feathers with woollen tail Western Australia 530 x 90mm 57
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Chitty (Willy wagtail) | 2019 Janine McAullauy Bott Karrajong seed head, palm fronds and emu feather tail Western Australia 300 x 170mm 58
TT HH EE
A A L L C H E E M M II SS TT SS
Fishing net cought on reef. Image courtesy Tim Sheerman-Chase Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.
59
TT HH EE
A L C H H EE M M II SS TT SS
60
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
G H O S T N E T A R T: A N E W L A N G UAG E , C AU G H T B Y H A N D
The intertwining of creativity, resourcefulness and necessity is partly thanks to the geographical position of these communities, as well as the skills and ingenuity of its male and female artists. Because of the tidal action and the impact of legal and illegal fishing activity in the seas and regions to its north, the Gulf of Carpentaria between Arnhem Land and Cape York is the area of Australia most affected by ghost nets.
MAGS WEBSTER Writer, FORM, building a state of creativity
The fostering and expansion of ghostnet art has been a key activity for Ghostnets Australia (GNA), an alliance formed in 2004 of indigenous rangers, artists, researchers, fishers and environmentalists ―saltwater people―working together to reduce ghost nets.
Ghost nets. The abandoned detritus of broken and derelict fishing gear, tossed or torn from trawlers and fishing boats. The equivalent of thousands of square kilometres of non-biodegradable netting, polluting oceans and shorelines all over the world. Drifting currents and tides, snagging on reefs and wrecks, these abandoned meshes continue to fish indiscriminately. Debris, seaweed, rubbish from container ships. As if cast by invisible hands (hence the term ‘ghost’) these nets go on ‘fishing’ and are responsible for countless cruel and unintentional injuries and deaths. Turtles, dugong, whales, sharks. Dolphin, seabirds, rays. Marine creatures washed up on beaches, strangled or starved, or drowned long before they can free themselves.
While the problem of ghost nets reportedly became noticeable to the Indigenous people of the area in the mid-1990s, the first documentation of the nets being regarded and employed as artistic materials is between 2009 and 2011, with ‘mostly baskets and jewelry’ being made. Gradually however, experimentation evolved into the practice of making objects with ‘more complex shape and bigger size’, large-scale sculptures of the artists’ totems, such as crocodile, shark and turtle, representations of reef and shoreline, and of people. Despite the breadth and ambition of this art form, the mechanisms (if not the process) that go into producing it are relatively modest. Anthropologist and ethnologist Dr Géraldine Le Roux notes that ‘ghostnet artistic practice requires few tools: knives, scissors, secateurs, netcutters and wire cutters are used to cut the nets, nylon and metal pieces. Needles are used to assemble the various elements … stitching is used both to assemble pieces and as a decorative detail’. Environmentally speaking, this low impact technology into high impact art.
The practice of ghostnet art, the harvesting and creative re-use of this marine detritus into woven forms and sculpture is an innovation in fibre art and conservation started around ten years ago in the remote Cape York communities of Pormpuraaw and Aurukun, home of Thaayorre, Kugu and Wik people, and Erub (Darnley) Island in the Torres Strait, home of Erubam le (people) from four tribal groups.
61
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
For the Cape York and Torres Strait Indigenous people who practise it, ghostnet art is simply another visible and tangible expression of caring for country. Yet the artists and their communities recognise that their creativity can draw attention to the impact of marine pollution.
Human agency is vitally important in this alchemical transition from something that has become harmful into a new shape as something artistic, enlightening, and often whimsical. After all, nets are not intrinsically bad. Nets catch fish; nets are a source of sustenance. Ghost nets and ghost fishing, however, pervert this original purpose and design. The problem is caused by people; and people must find the solution. The manipulation, via human hands, of ghostnets into something of beauty, usefulness or humour helps take, as Kalkeeyorta says, ‘the ‘killingness’’ out of the nets. ‘From a bad thing it’s transferring into a good thing. See, it’s part of culture. You can have bad culture, good culture. No more ghost net; instead, you have a bag full of apples, oranges or yams’.
Worth noting also is that while fibre art globally is practised predominantly by female artists, some communities on the Sea of Carpentaria buck this trend; for example: ‘Pormpuraaw people have always been weavers—women and men’. In Aurukun, north of Pormpuraaw however, ghostnet art is practised by the female artists. As Aurukun artist and cultural spokesperson Stanley Kalkeeyorta explains ‘the environment people … pick up this waste and we make them into good. It’s the ladies that make them good … the nets have power to kill. But then we draw that out and make it into this, and from the fishing net it becomes a food bowl’.
Or you can have woven representations of turtles, dugong, whales, sharks; dolphin, seabirds, rays: forms that draw attention to what we risk losing to carelessness and our problematic relationship with our planet. Through pieces that are playful and engaging, yet which articulate deeply thoughtful and serious messages, ghostnet art practitioners are able to ‘create spaces of encounters between people who are not often connected: artists, fishermen and art lovers; Indigenous and non-Indigenous environmental activists’. Moreover, this offers another way for us to educate ourselves about and address the moral and environmental issues that collectively we face.
While there are isolated examples of artists making sculpture and jewellery from ghost nets in the UK for example, and Pakistan it is fair to say that the Indigenous peoples of north eastern Australia lead the world in this practice. And though this innovation in fibre art is still relatively new, ghostnet art is already in the collections of Parliament House, the National Gallery of Australia, University of Queensland, British Museum, Queensland Art Gallery and the Australian Museum. Pieces have featured as part of Sculpture by the Sea in Bondi and Cottesloe. The world’s largest permanent installation of ghostnet art is at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney.
If art is a new language, then this is one we can all learn to speak.
62
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Minch Pinch or Barramundi | 2019 Eric Norman Pormpuraaw Ghost net 800 x 1240 x 250mm 63
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Detail: Minch Pinch or Barramundi | 2019. Eric Norman. Ghost net. Pormpuraaw. 800 x 1240 x 250mm . Photography by Taryn Hays, 2019. 64
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
ANNABELL AMAGULA Weaver Groote Eylandt
“My name is Annabell Amagula. I’m an artist from Groote Eylandt. I started with the old way, weaving baskets and making bags. Then I jumped to weaving fabrics. My grandmother used to teach me and I was encouraged by my father. He told me everything, asking “When you grow up, what are you going to do? When you’ve got your own children and your grandchildren?” “I’ll be an artist dad.” I went one day on Sunday – the holy day - and I walked alone to the dump and I found these rusted things. I thought to myself, “What am I going to do with these?” And I started weaving. People haven’t seen these fabrics. These are sand and saltwater. There’s green leaves and mangroves from where we would swim. I am a teacher of artists at Umbakumba, showing them how to make baskets, earrings and jewelry. When I was married I started work with them, in 2016. I was working hard with them girls and they got my everything. I teach them everything. Already Maicie (Lalara) got all my skills and I am happy. We would go out to the land and collect all them nets, take it to the ranger and start making baskets and things like that. It’s hard on your fingers, weaving with the ghost nets. It’s easier when you use fabrics, mix it up with the net. That’s why we’re mixing our fabrics with the colour yellow. Manguna tree. Black colour, that’s from the leaves.” Annabel Amagula with woven basket, Darwin, 2019. Photograph by Claire Martin. 65
TT HH EE
A L C H H EE M M II SS TT SS
MAICIE LALARA Weaver Groote Eylandt
Maicie Lalara is a weaver from Umbakumba Community at Anindilyakwa Arts on Groote Eylandt. “My name is Maicie Lalara. I’m an artist. I weave baskets and ghost nets. I weave two ways: old ways with pandanus and new ways with ghost net. I weave a lot with fabric and pandanus but the best weaving is the new way for me. Ghost net is a new textile. It travels along from overseas and hides in the deep blue sea, like a trap. Fish and animals get captured in the ghost net and float away to the land. The ranger collects the net and gives it to the artists to create weaving sculptures. It’s a bit harder than pandanus but it’s easy to make baskets from it. It gives me different colours. In the old days the elders used bush string to make bags for bush tucker and to carry stuff for hunting. The old ladies teach me the old ways with mabalba - it’s a tree they get string from. We bush dye it, using a natural dye from the bush but now we’ve got the blue ghost net inside. The way I see it, it’s like the ghost net is the water and the bush dyed fabric is the land. It’s in the water, the deep blue sea, and the bush leaves are like land, the different textiles of yellows and browns. I’m addicted to weaving. I started at 17. This is my future. It’s good for me to pass it on to the young ones, out in our community. Share the knowledge from the elders.”
Detail: ghost net weaving, Darwin, 2019. Photograph by Claire Martin. 66
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Ghost Net Basket | 2019 Sharna Wurramara Anindilyakwa Ghost net 330 x 200mm 67
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
Ghost Net Basket | 2019 Marie Mamarika Anindilyakwa Ghost net 400 x 450mm 68
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
ANINDILYAKWA ARTS
ELCHO ISLAND ARTS
Anindilyakwa Arts represents close to 100 artists on Groote Eylandt, in the Gulf of Carpenteria. The arts centre encompasses bases at Angurugu, Umbakumba and Milyakburra, a men’s program and a gallery. Practice at the centre spans plant dyed textiles to carvings, didgeridoos and spears, traditional basketry, pandanus baskets and ghost net baskets.
Elcho Island Arts at Galiwin’ku, off the north-east coast of Arnhem is renowned for its artists’ originality in design and knowledge of traditional bush materials. Their artworks, weavings, fibre art, carvings and ceremonial poles are widely exhibited and are in national collections within Australia and in major collections worldwide.
GAPUWIYAK CULTURE AND ARTS
BALUK ARTS ABORIGINAL CORPORATION
Gapuwiyak Culture and Arts is a remote Art Centre in east Arnhemland supporting one hundred artists from Gapuwiyak and surrounding homelands. Their artists produce fibre art, paintings, carvings and larrakitj.
Baluk Arts is a 100 per cent Aboriginal owned and operated art centre on the Mornington Peninsula with a membership of 190 spanning the Mornington Peninsula, Frankston, South Melbourne and Gippsland Regions of Victoria. Practice at the centre spans printmaking to sculpture with a focus on weaving and jewelry, working with found objects with Indigenous significance, such as kelp and possum skin.
MANINGRIDA ARTS AND CULTURE Maningrida Arts & Culture in northern Arnhem Land is one the longest running art centres in the country. Bridging a diverse community of more than 20 language groups in bark painting, fibre weaving, woodcarving and printmaking. Works in fibre have always been strong from this region, known for their aesthetic use of bush dyes and conical fish traps.
BULA’BULA ARTS Bula’bula Arts at Ramingining in North East Arnhem Land is an Aboriginal owned and governed, not for profit organisation that represents around 150 artists from the region. The works created by Bula’bula’s artist members are connected to the Yolngu and their ceremonies, songs, language, creative beings, and family, as well as animals, plants, birds, trees, fish, water and Yolngu identity within these things.
MARTUMILI ARTISTS Martumili Art in Western Australia’s Pilbara region markets the work of more than 250 self-employed Martu people living in the communities of Parnpajinya (Newman), Jigalong, Parnngurr, Punmu, Kunawarritji, Irrungadji and Warralong. Martumili Artists include painters working in acrylics and oils, as well as weavers coiling baskets and sculptors working in wood, grass and wool; and are represented in permanent national and international collections.
69
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
MERREPEN ARTS CENTRE
GRACE LILLIAN LEE
Merrepen Arts Centre, in Nauiyi community on the banks of the Daly River in the Northern Territory, supports around 80 artists working in a variety of traditional and contemporary mediums, including textiles, painted fabrics, ceramics and weaving. A number of the most established artists from the region are now recognised on a national level.
Grace Lillian Lee creates wearable interpretations of traditional Torres Strait Island fibre art. Creative director of this year’s Darwin Art Fair fashion showcase From Country to Couture, Grace’s designs are held in major collections including the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. She leads First Nation Fashion and Design, a national mentorship platform for remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, and was this year named number one on Arts Queensland’s list of 16 Queenslanders to watch, and announced as a finalist in The Australian Women’s Weekly 2019 Women of the Future Awards.
MILINGIMBI ART AND CULTURE Milingimbi Art and Culture is location on an island community off the coast of East Arnhem Land. Milingimbi artists are renowned for sharing their stories in fibre works, barks, ceremonial poles and carvings. Works from Milingimbi are recognised for their quality and cultural significance and are collected in many national and international institutions.
VICKI WEST Vicki West is a Tasmanian Aboriginal artist of the trawlwoolway people from the North East coast region. Her arts practice includes large scale installations incorporating multiple elements, smaller scale sculptural works, jewellery, textiles, painting and new media. She draws on traditional Tasmanian Aboriginal cultural practices and materials to create contemporary artworks that explore and celebrate cultural survival in the face of continuing colonial myths of the extinction of her people. - in her own words “we are still here”.
PORMPURAAW ART AND CULTURE Pormpuraaw Arts and Cultural Centre is a remote Aboriginal community located on the Gulf of Carpentaria on the Cape York Peninsula. It is the traditional homeland of the Thaayorre and Kugu tribes, and is a sanctuary for language, culture and art. Pormpuraaw Artists work in painting, printing and sculptures made from ghost net.
JANINE MCAULLAY BOTT Janine McAullay Bott is a Noongar artist from Western Australia. Janine creates woven animals and objects from palm fronds, local grasses and reeds and materials such as grape vines. Her work reflects her Noongar heritage including the animals and country of her ancestors. She developed her skills and profile in fibre-weaving whilst living in Hawaii and weaving with Hopi Indian Rug Weavers and Kachina Doll makers in Nevada, USA.
70
T H E
A L C H E M I S T S
FORM building a state of creativity 39 Gugeri Street, Claremont, Western Australia, 6010 mail@form.net.au +61 8 9385 2200 Published by FORM building a state of creativity, October, 2019. Catalogue text by Kim Kirkman, Mags Webster, Sharmila Wood, Louise Hamby, and Nicole Chaffey. The Alchemists exhibition curated by Sharmila Wood (FORM), for FORM’s project space, The Goods Shed, Claremont, in 2019. Designed by Ryan Stephenson and Cinthya Lovin. Photography by Taryn Hays, Claire Martin, Ben Ward, Jessica Wyld, Wade Lewis and Gabrielle Sullivan. Printed by Scott Print. © 2019. All rights reserved. Copyright for photographic images is held by FORM and the individual photographers. Copyright for written content and this publication is held by FORM or the individual writers. www.form.net.au IBSN: 978-0-9757274-1-6 This book was conceived and written mostly on the lands of Nyoongar people, the traditional owners of Nyoongar Boodja. FORM respects and acknowledges all of Australia’s traditional owners, and their Elders past, present and emerging, and is grateful for the privilege of living and working on Nyoongar Country.
71
TT HH EE
Exhibition initiated and managed by FORM
Gallery Partner
A L C H H EE M M II SS TT SS
Principal Partner
Government Support
72