Key Outcomes for Visual Arts
Session One
Artists' Motivations Aspirations and Needs
Bilawara Lee explained that she is responsible for implementing the NT Indigenous Arts Strategy. Between 80 and 85 per cent of Aboriginal Australians are in the Northern Territory, many of whom live in communities. Arts centres assist with these communities. The Northern Territory Government works with ANKAAA (Association of Northern, Kimberley and Arnhem Aboriginal Artists) which represents artists from 34 arts centres across the Top End and through the Kimberley. Arts NT also works with DesArt, which represents artists from some 35 arts centres from Alice Springs, the central desert and west into Western Australia. Karen Mills is unusual in being a member of ANKAAA as an individual artist, as mostly artists are represented through arts centres.
Karen Mills told her story as an emerging artist in Darwin. Adopted as a child, she grew up without much knowledge of her culture. Having attended art school in Darwin 10 years ago, she developed her own style of artwork based in part on the knitting patterns her mother worked on when she was young and on her own interest in fibre arts. Since her study, she has established an art practice without the support of an agent or gallery. Over the years she has had curatorial experience, as artist in residence and in collaborating with other artists. She is a member of ANKAAA as an individual artist. She spoke of the different experience of being an urban Indigenous artist and praised the experience and connections she had received through involvement with ANKAAA: 'ANKAAA is an important organisation because it's an available resource for individual artists to still stay within the information network and to be part of the working with other Aboriginal artists'.
Regis Pangirminni described the Tiwi Art Network, of which he is chairman, that works with more than 60 artists in three arts centres: two on Melville Island called Jilamara Arts and Crafts, and Munupi Arts and Crafts (where he works) and one centre, Tiwi Design, on Bathurst Island, known collectively as the Tiwi Islands. Both islands have arts centres and artists work in screen-printing, painting, linocuts, etching and ceramics. He told his story of beginning to make ceramics in the 1970s. He learned to fire his own pots and to sell his own products, which he continues doing while supporting other artists in his community in many areas. He told the Key Forum of the many tourists who visit the Tiwi Islands to see and purchase the art produced there. He commented that marketing is a big part of the role of an arts centre.
Gulumbu Yunupiŋu explained she is a grandmother now, but began making art when she was 12 years old. She said that as a girl at school in the 1950s she would learn from senior women who would come to her school and pass knowledge on to the young girls. As a fibre artist, she works in many media: bags, mats, pandanus string dilly bags. She collects and prepares materials from the bush. She knows all stages of making art and has that knowledge to pass on. She sometimes works at Yirrkala Arts Centre painting and making dilly bags. She is represented by Alcaston Gallery in Melbourne and spoke of her recent exhibition called Marwat. Marwat refers to Gulumbu using women's hair in the brushes as she paints. In this way she is bringing the ancestors into her painting in a very real way as well as in spirit. Gulumbu also spoke of her painting Garak (The Universe) which won the Telstra Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2004. Depicting the seven sisters constellation, it tells of the connection between sky and earth. She said she is focussing on growth in her work. She talks about plants and people growing up and about families. 'You look up and see the stars in the sky.' The story talks about the universe, about land and about sea, the connections between them and the people who tell their stories. She praised the work of the Yirrkala Arts Centre because it keeps 'them' strong. 'We pass it on to grandchildren so that we can keep the arts strong. The colours we have are like the languages we speak.'
Bilawara Lee wove together the threads spun by the artists with their words. She recalled their common emphasis that arts are a primary way for Indigenous cultures to have a way of making a sustainable income. The work of Indigenous artists is valuable to the whole of Australia's economy, government and culture. Education is central to achieving these outcomes, passing on knowledge to children and grandchildren.