Floating life: contemporary Aboriginal fibre art

35 by Aboriginal artists living in cities and rural centres was transformed by the emergence of Indigenous curators and artists, such as Djon Mundine, Hetti Perkins, Brenda L Croft and Fiona Foley (represented in this exhibition). The development of Central Desert acrylic paintings and the excited reaction to exhibitions such as ‘Dreamings: The Art of Aboriginal Australia’, also held in New York in 1989, challenged conventional perceptions of Aboriginal art within Australia and internationally. 13 In the 1990s, the pervasive idea of ‘both ways’, of a ‘double vision’, emanated from within Indigenous communities — a tactic that allowed both Indigenous and settler views to be valued and incorporated. One result has been significant exhibitions increasing in scope and range over the past 20 years, with many projects bringing Aboriginal and non- Aboriginal artists working together in fibre arts. The 1992 exhibition ‘Two Countries, One Weave?’ at the Tandanya Cultural Institute in Adelaide, South Australia, highlighted the cross-cultural impact of artists using the coiling technique, opening eyes to the possibilities of reinventions coming from within peripheral and remote outposts. In 1996, ‘Below the Surface’ at Goulburn Regional Gallery in New South Wales (curated by Sue Rowley and Jennifer Lamb) brought Ngarrindjeri artists Yvonne Koolmatrie and Ellen Trevorrow together with a group of non-Aboriginal textile artists, of whom I was one, in a way that profoundly affected all the participants, stretching boundaries and assumptions. At the same time, the momentous scale of Yvonne Koolmatrie’s rush weavings appeared in solo exhibitions — setting, as weaver Virginia Kaiser observed, ‘a benchmark for Indigenous and non-Indigenous weavers’, 14 and culminating in Koolmatrie’s selection for the ‘Fluent’ exhibition at the 1997 Venice Biennale with Indigenous artists Emily Kngwarreye and Judy Watson. This exhibition, curated by Hetti Perkins and Brenda L Croft, demonstrated the refreshing stream flooding into mainstream Australian arts where, as Edmund Capon from the Art Gallery of New South Wales commented, ‘ancient pasts inform contemporary lives’ — a stream still flowing strongly in ‘Floating Life’. 15 Smaller projects have been very poignant and influential. In 2001, the centenary of Federation, the Weaving the Murray Federation collaborative project of fibre works, initiated by Kay Lawrence, examined difficult past histories along the river from a ‘both ways’ perspective. 16 The 1999 Wollongong City Gallery exhibition ‘Crossing the Strait: Tasmania to the South Coast’ challenged the view that Tasmanian and south-east Australian cultural practices, including the making of baskets and shell necklaces, did not survive. 17 All the works in the exhibition were purchased by the Australian Maritime Museum. In only ten years, Palawa and Trawlwoolway artists in Tasmania have tenaciously developed their practices; ‘Floating Life’ includes works by Tasmanian artists Lola Greeno, Jeanette James and Aunti Corrie Fullard. Over many exhibitions, Diane Moon, as a freelance curator, publicised the work of central Arnhem Land artists, such as the wonderful series of monumental fish traps by artists Lorna Jin-Gubarangunyja and Jack Maranbarra, to mention only a few. She shed light on the continuing traditions and innovations of north Queensland fibre artists in ‘Carried Lightly’ (Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville, 1998), and has ushered into the public eye the work of Alan Griffiths and Michael Boiyool Anning. 18 Another leading arts adviser is Nalda Searles, who collaborated with Western Desert artists to exhibit the powerful sculpted figures for the show ‘Seven Sisters: Fibre Works Arising from the West’, which toured in Western Australia in 2004. Intriguing exhibitions were also generated from the perspective of anthropologists, influenced by the extensive scholarship of Howard Morphy, Opposite left Jack Maranbarra Martay/Burarra people NT b.1941 An-gujechiya (Fish trap) 2007 Twined jungle vine, wood 198 x 35cm (diam.) Acc. 2007.143 Purchased 2007. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant Opposite right An-gujechiya (Fish trap) 2006 Twined jungle vine, wood 230 x 51.5cm (diam.) Acc. 2006.261 Purchased 2006. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Michael Boiyool Anning Yidinyji people QLD b.1956 Rainforest shield (Hand-held fish net design) 2000–01 Natural pigments on softwood 102 x 41 x 6cm Acc. 2001.018a Purchased 2001. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant