The aboriginals of Australia have perpetuated their legacy through oral tradition and graphic art instead of a codified language. At the ongoing exhibition at DlF Saket, each piece has its own story to tell. R Kaur reports
I was walking around for a long time but I got sick. He came (in a helicopter) and landed in my father’s camp. He spoke to me not in Kukatja but in English. I sat there puzzled and asked him to take me to Balgo for treatment. They put me on the helicopter — me and my mother,” recalls Helicopter Tjungurrayi, an aboriginal artist from Australia, in the description of his work Natawalu. This is also how Helicopter earned his name when he was a young boy.
He was a part of the 70 artists’ team which embarked on a six-week long expedition on the Canning Stock Route in Western Australia spanning over 1,850 km in 2007. They created over 100 traditional artworks conveying their personal, historic and ancestral stories of the land where they were born. The exhibition Yiwarra Kuju: The Canning Stock Route, a joint initiative between the National Museum of Australia and FORM (an Australian non-profit cultural organisation), is on display at DlF Saket till June 22.
“Yiwarra refers to a road, track or a path and Kuju means one. The exhibition, is in essence, a history of the Canning Stock Route, as seen from an aboriginal point of view. The idea behind ‘One Track’ is the interconnection between places along the route, bringing together aboriginal groups from different parts in one exhibition,” says Peter Thorley, head of the National Museum of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Programme.
The Canning Stock Route, a cattle route, was established in 1906 by the Western Australian Government to allow the expansion of the pastoral industry. During the late 19th and early 20th century, outsiders would trespass the land of the aboriginals’ to explore the area for water holes. Some were attacked. Reprisals for these attacks led to the murder of an unknown number of aboriginal people.
“In the 1960s, many of these groups were affected by a long drought and began to drift towards places where they could obtain a reliable food and water supply. In addition, patrol officers deployed by the Weapons Research Establishment were responsible for the clearing of a corridor for the Blue-Streak Rocket tests. As a result, almost all Western Desert groups were resettled in missions or Government settlements by the late 1960s,” Thorley says while highlighting the reason for the displacement of these groups.
On a soil-coloured backdrop, artist Dadina Georgina Brown has neatly arranged multiple white and yellow dots over red mud and blue concentric circles in her work titled Where I Was Born. Travelling around with her family in the east of the Stock Route, Georgina was among the last people leading a nomadic life in the Western Desert but was brought to a settlement in Wiluna in 1976. “When we came here (Wiluna), we wanted to go back. Mum and dad went halfway but our relatives brought us back. Dad didn’t want to hang around here. That’s why I paint about my memories, my family,” she recounts.
Another vibrant assemblage of white, sand yellow and orange dots along with peachy and red lines and blue circles depicting water wells, narrates the famous tale of the Seven Sisters or Minyipuru. Created by three sisters — Muni Rita Simpson, Rosie Williams and Dulcie Gibbs — it recounts how one of the seven sisters was kidnapped by an old man named Yurla and was finally rescued by other sisters. The sites of the Seven Sisters’ journey are depicted as the wells in the painting.
The dots are mainly decorated infill but they do add to the visual power — in some paintings — creating an optical effect that appears to shimmer. The artists paint for commercial art centres and small cooperatives in Western Desert. It enables them to pursue their artistic career. It was in collaboration with these art centres that FORM initiated the project to research the artists’ connections with the Canning Stock Route story. “The artists were very happy to be involved in this project. They travelled along the Route visiting many important sites in their country. They were able to perform their role as custodians of the land. The artists want others to know about their lives and history, they want their stories to be told,” says Thorley.
Traditionally, artists in these regions painted with ochre on rock walls and bodies. Ochres are soft colourful stones and the aboriginals would travel long distances to get the best of ochres. They also covered sacred objects with it. Western Desert artists began painting with acrylics in 1971 at the settlement of Papunya. They started painting on wooden boards and then switched to canvas around 1973. Ochre is still used as a body paint in ceremonies.
Thorley informs us that there are strict rules regarding who can paint or sculpt a design in aboriginal groups. “The artists own the designs and stories. They can give permission to others to paint these places. Some stories and designs are restricted to initiated men. Some are collaborations between artists whose paintings feature more than one story or interconnection between stories,” says Thorley.
Collaborative painting Kunawarritji to Wajaparni was produced by artists from five different centres. On a white canvas are patterns in red mud colour, similar to cross hatching and blue circles indicating the wells in the Stock Route. Working under the guidance of senior men, Jeffrey James and Patrick Tjungurrayi, painted the part of the country with which they have close family ties.
Art and craft have also played a central role in the economic development of aboriginal communities throughout Australia. “Sales are an important source of income for artists and their families,” says Thorley. On the message that the exhibition conveys, Thorley says, “We hope the visitors would learn about the lives of these aboriginals and how relevant these artworks and stories depicted therein are.”