Floating life: contemporary Aboriginal fibre art

36 37 Endnotes 1. Mandawuy Yunupingu, Dot West, Ian Anderson, Jeanie Bell, Getano Lui, Helen Corbett, Noel Pearson, Voices from the Land , Boyer Lectures, ABC Books, Sydney, 1994, pp.8–9. 2. Yvonne Koolmatrie, workshop in the Coorong, South Australia, 30 November 1997. 3. Alexis Wright, conference presentation at ‘Try Freedom’, Venice, 27 March 2008. See Alexis Wright, Carpentaria , Giramondo Publishing, Sydney, 2007, p.401. 4. In 1996 the Tiwi Literature Production Centre with Donald Kantilla and Fiona Kerinaiua produced a bilingual text of a ‘Young Tiwi Women’s ceremony’, showing how fibre artefacts are essential to the ceremony. The old customs were reformulated in the new written Tiwi, and in English translation. See Yuwakirimi Donald Kantilla and Jiyikiringirri yimanka Fiona Kerinaiua, Ngirramini Ngini Mirringilaja , Nguiu Nginingawila Literature Production Centre, Nguiu, Bathurst Island via Darwin, 1996, p.18. 5. Royal Geographical Society Journal, London, vol.IV , no.158, 1834, quoted in Herbert Basedow, ‘Notes on the natives of Bathurst Island, north Australia’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute , XLIII, 1914, pp.291–323. 6. Philip Jones, Ochre and Rust: Artefacts and Encounters on Australian Frontiers , Wakefield Press, South Australia, 2007, pp.228–9; Philip Jones, ‘Bartering for baskets’, in Louise Hamby (ed.), Twined Together: Kunmadj Njalehnjaleken [exhibition catalogue], Injalak Arts and Crafts, Gunbalanya, NT, 2005. 7. Anne Virgo, ‘Research, record, reclaim Indigenous cultural material’, Imprint , vol.35, no.2, 2000, pp.1–3. 8. Louise Hamby (ed.), Twined Together: Kunmadj Njalehnjaleken [exhibition catalogue], Injalak Arts and Crafts, Gunbalanya, NT, 2005, pp.56–7. 9. Marcia Langton, Holy, Holy, Holy [exhibition catalogue], Flinders University City Gallery & State Library of South Australia, Adelaide, 2004, pp.22, 34. 10. Kerry Giles and Piri Everett, ‘Two countries, one weave?’, in Artlink , vol.12, no.2, winter, 1992, pp.44–6; Sylvia Kleinert and Margo Neale, The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture , Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 2000, pp.371–2. 11. Tim Acker and Jon Altman, ‘Its all art, but still we have a fibre problem’, Selling Yarns: Australian Indigenous Textiles and Good Business in the 21st Century , <http://www. craftaustralia.org.au >, viewed May 2009. 12. Brian Parkes (ed.), Woven Forms: Contemporary Basket Making in Australia [exhibition catalogue], Object, Australian Centre for Craft and Design, Sydney, 2005; Carly Davenport Acker (ed.), Cultural Strands , Form Contemporary Craft and Design, Perth, 2006. 13. Peter Sutton (ed.), Dreamings: The Art of Aboriginal Australia , Viking, Ringwood, Vic., 1988. 14. Virginia Kaiser, ‘Connecting with a common strand’, in Davenport Acker (ed.), 2006. 15. Hetti Perkins and Brenda L Croft, Fluent: Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Yvonne Koolmatrie , Judy Watson [exhibition catalogue], Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1997. 16. Rhonda Agius et al, Weaving the Murray [exhibition catalogue], Centenary of Federation South Australia and Prospect Gallery, Prospect, SA, 2001. 17. Kathryn Wells (ed.), Crossing the Strait: Tasmania to the South Coast [exhibition catalogue], Wollongong Art Gallery & Continental Shift Association, Canberra, 2003. 18. Diane Moon brought together the Maningrida collection, held in trust at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. ‘Fabrics of Change: Trading Identities’ (Wollongong and Adelaide in 2004) juxtaposed museum objects with contemporary artists reworking older forms in a postcolonial context. 19. Margie West, ‘Strings through the heart: The proliferation of coiling across Australia, ReCoil: Change & Exchange in Coiled Fibre , <http://www.craftaustralia.org.au >, viewed May 2009. 20. Kay Lawrence, This Everything Water [exhibition catalogue], South Australian School of Art Gallery, Adelaide, 2008. such as Louise Hamby working with artists in ‘Fibre Art from Elcho Island’ (University of New South Wales, 1994); or Louise Hamby and Diana Young’s notable travelling exhibition in 2001, ‘Art on a String: Aboriginal Threaded Objects from the Central Desert and Arnhem Land’. Hamby’s wide-ranging work in curating fibre, with Lindy Allen, has culminated in the impressive magnitude of ‘Twined Together: Kunmadj Njalehnjaleken’ from Injalak Arts and Crafts, Gunbalanya, Northern Territory, shown at Museum Victoria in 2005 and published as a substantial book. Accompanying the very successful ‘Selling Yarns 2: Innovation and Sustainability’ conference at the National Museum of Australia in 2009, curator Margie West brought together engrossing fibre pieces using the coiling technique highlighted in ‘Two Weaves’ at Tandanya Cultural Centre, Adelaide, in 1992. Now, in 2009, the exhibition ‘ReCoil: Change and Exchange in Coiled Fibre Art’ at Tandanya shows the increasing scope of quite breathtaking discovery in contemporary craft practice in the 17 years since that time, and includes inter-cultural exchange between Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists who have close working relationships. 19 Influences and interactions Despite the relatively small proportion of Aboriginal people within the Australian population, Aboriginal art has a forceful influence on the artistic tactics of non-Aboriginal artists, in relating to country, and on ways of working with a subterranean humour and witty use of minimal materials. For example, the ‘two ways’ focus of ‘This Everything Water’, Kay Lawrence’s and Aubrey Tigan’s exhibition in Adelaide in 2008, interrogated intertwined material histories of pearlshell and blankets. 20 The exhibition showed that just as Aboriginal traditions are not fixed and timeless, European and Asian traditions can also be forgotten and then re-invoked and re-worked for a different knowledge of the past and its relationship to current art. In Greek, the word to gasp or breathe in suddenly is aisthanomai , the origin of the word ‘aesthetic’. Something about the works in ’Floating Life’ arouses the same breathless emotion in me. It was what I once experienced when examining the strata of a Mediterranean excavation from a remote time. It evoked an older way of being in the largeness of country, and something about these works is as unexpected as shining a torch on a hidden Roman wall of the first century and finding a garland of waving leaves and flowers painted there in soft pigments. Seen against this background of the evolution of Aboriginal fibre as a leaven in the wider arts field, the Queensland Art Gallery’s acquisition and installation of the works in ‘Floating Life’ builds on the earlier assemblage of Arnhem Land Aboriginal fibre held in the trust of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, and adds critically to knowledge about fragile fibre artefacts as a national resource. I have a sense of possibilities opening up, a sense that the hunt for the nuances of Aboriginal fibre is creating a new ‘country of the mind’. Left Gwongil Maung people NT b.unknown Double-sided bag c.1960s Coil-woven and knotted pandanus palm leaf with natural dyes 38.5 x 30 x 3cm (diam.) Acc. 2007.045 Gift of Julie Ewington through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2006 Right Yvonne Koolmatrie Ngarrindjeri people SA b.1944 Sister basket 2007 Coil-woven sedge grass and river rushes 62 x 33 x 13cm Acc. 2007.154 Purchased 2007. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant