The Ninth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

127 ARTISTS Kalben (detail) 2016–17 Carved wood with synthetic polymer paint and natural pigments, raffia / 107 pieces ranging from 14 to 41cm in length; installed dimensions variable / Purchased 2017. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery alair pambegan Wik-Mungkan people Born 1966, Aurukun, Queensland, Australia Lives and works in Aurukun Alair Pambegan is a Wik-Mungkan man who lives in the western Cape York community of Aurukun, close to his country in north Queensland. Pambegan is the son of the late, revered lawman, elder and artist Arthur Koo’ekka Pambegan Jr (1936–2010), who was also heir to Wik-Mungkan artistic traditions. Pambegan Jr was custodian for Walkaln-aw (Bonefish Story Place) and Kalben (Flying Fox Story Place), two significant ancestral story places, and associated narratives, for the Winchanam clan along the Watson River and Tompaten Creek (Small Archer River), in the heart of Wik-Mungkan country. Alair Pambegan was handed down these stories and responsibilities from his father, and Alair now carries these traditions forward with an innovative passion. His practice includes large-scale, semi-abstract paintings, and installations of suspended milkwood sculptures painted with ochres and charcoal, which reference his people’s important ancestral sites and stories. For APT9, Pambegan has created a large set of suspended sculptures that embody Kalben, a site on Tompaten Creek near its junction with the Watson River, just south of Aurukun. This work takes its reference point from the Flying Fox Story Place poles — the epic law poles made by his father — the most significant group of which is held in the Queensland Art Gallery Collection. Featuring 15 carved milkwood logs each up to 2.5 metres tall, which are suspended from the Gallery ceiling, the work mimics flying foxes hanging upside down like bats from their tree perches. The Kalben narrative follows two young brothers undergoing initiation rites, which includes abstaining from hunting and eating certain animals. The brothers broke this taboo by sneaking out of their camp and killing hundreds of bats, then cooking them in a kup-mar (ground oven). Not satisfied with their catch, the boys returned to kill more bats. One of the brothers threw his spear, but it missed the bats, and flew into the Watson River. While the brothers swam to retrieve the spear, a group of older men noticed their absence. Searching the camp, they found the kup-mar and removed its coverings. The bats — still alive inside — burst forth from the earth and encircled the brothers, before picking them up and carrying them into the night sky. Today, two black patches can be seen in the Milky Way, and these are the final resting places of the young men, whose lives serve as an enduring reminder to Wik-Mungkan people of the importance of observing cultural law and protocol. 1 In contrast to his late father’s large-scale sculptures of suspended striped poles, which referenced the minh mal (black flying fox) and the minh wuk (red flying fox) hanging upside down from their tree perches, Pambegan’s interpretation is more narrative-driven and animated. Casting over 100 smaller forms in Winchanam body-painting designs — using a sequence of black, white, red and white stripes — and allowing the flying foxes to ‘swarm’, Pambegan’s work evokes the movement of the animals as they burst out of the kup-mar and seize the brothers, taking them to their final resting place among the stars. Alair Pambegan’s work powerfully illustrates the importance of the intergenerational transmission of cultural and artistic knowledge, together with a younger artist’s desire to innovate within an established and distinguished art-making tradition. Bruce Johnson McLean Endnote 1 There are a number of versions of this narrative, each with slight variations. This version is based on research by Trish Johnson, former Project Officer, Indigenous Australian Art, Queensland Art Gallery, dated February 2004; it was at this time that Arthur Koo-ekka Pambegan Jr’s Flying Fox Story Place 2002–03 (Acc. 2003.161a-o), on which Alair collaborated with his father, was acquired for the Gallery’s Collection.