Tarnanthi | Festival of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art 2019
The 2019 Tarnanthi launches on 18 October with a celebration of Indigenous culture in the home of the Kaurna People in Adelaide at the Art Gallery of South Australia.
Words: Emma-Kate Wilson
Sharon Adamson, Pukatja (Ernabella), South Australia, 2019. Photo - Tjala Arts.
For the opening weekend, Australia’s largest celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art and culture welcomes over 300 Australian artists to Tarndanyangga, place of the red kangaroo. Special guests include Yolŋu artist and ceremonial leader, Djambawa Marawili AM; performances from Yolŋu rapper, Baker Boy, and artists from Tiwi Islands and northeast Arnhem Land. “People will get a real glimpse into the diversity of our cultures through the Tarnanthi Festival,” shares the festival’s artistic director, Nici Cumpston.
“In the Kaurna language of the Adelaide Plains, Tarnanthi means ‘to rise, come forth, spring up or appear’. It heralds the animation of new ideas and new beginnings such as the rising sun, a universal metaphor across cultures for the agency of imagination.”
Angkaliya Nelson and Jennifer Mintaya Ward in a wiltja, Aralya, South Australia. Photo - Meg Hansen.
Tarnanthi Art Fair also reopens, at Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, bringing over 50 art centres from Australia together with a diverse range of mixed media for purchase. Another spot to exchange dollars for art involves Ryan Presley’s Blood Money Currency Exchange Terminal (2018). Based off his watercolour paintings, Blood Money (2018), the audience is invited into a real-life stock exchange where Australian Dollars (AUD) can be traded for denominations of limited-edition Blood Money Dollars (BMD).
Ngupulya Pumani, Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara people, South Australia, born 1948, Mimili, South Australia, Antara, 2018, Mimili, South Australia. Synthetic polymer paint on linen, three panels; © Ngupulya Pumani/Mimili Maku Arts.
In the gallery, Jonathan Jones’ Bunha-bunhanga, offers a first visual art representation of Uncle Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu and Bill Gammage’s The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia. “Part of the problem with Australian history, and non-Aboriginal ways of thinking, is the breaking down of knowledge and keeping things separate,” Jones explains. “This project is trying to present a more holistic picture.” The extensive installation encompass colonial landscape paintings; Murnong or Yam daisy and Gaaiman or Kangaroo Grass wallpaper designed by Jones; Wiradjuri soundscapes by Uncle Stan Grant AM; bronze sculptures by Uncle Roy Barker; and a collection of Aboriginal agriculture objects like wooden shovels and stone picks.
Brian Robinson, Kala Lagaw Ya/Wuthathi people, Cape York Peninsula, Torres Strait Islands, Queensland, born 1973, Waiben (Thursday Island), Queensland, Empyreal: A Place and a Path in the Sky and on the Earth, 2019, Cairns, Queensland, linocut, black ink on paper, © Brian Robinson/Mossenson Galleries. Photo - Michael Marzik.
“The elements all come together to tell a rich and complex story, engage the viewer in understanding our country, and provide a roadmap to how we can, as a nation, continue to care for country for future generations.”
Noŋgirrŋa Marawili, Yolŋu people, Northern Territory, born 1938, Baniyala, Northern Territory, Baratjala. 2019, Yirrkala, Northern Territory, earth pigments, recycled print toner pigment on stringybark © Noŋgirrŋa Marawili/BukuLarrŋgay Mulka Centre. Photo - Saul Steed.
Peter Mungkuri with his work Puṉu (trees), Weapons for the soldier, Hazelhurst Art Centre, 2018. Photo - Jackson Lee.
“Each of the artists has delved deep to create ambitious and unique works of art; people will get a real glimpse into the diversity of our cultures through the Tarnanthi Festival. You can see, hear and acquire works of art over the opening weekend at AGSA, the partner exhibitions and the Tarnanthi Art Fair.”
Other highlights from Tarnanthi 2019 feature Darrell and Garry Sibosado’s traditional guwan pearl shell riji designs. The Ballad of Billy Gardiner installation from the late Nyaparu (William) Gardiner with paintings and short film exploring the 1946 Pilbara strike, an influential movement against Aboriginal slavery that Gardiner witnessed as a child. And Peggy Griffiths-Madij’s ambitious large-scale paintings on paper revealing intimate, personal moments in descriptive earthy hues.
Tarnanthi unites artists from all over Australia, from the multitudes of different cultures and language groups. As AGSA director Rhana Davenport reflects, “Tarnanthi 2019 presents a breadth of expression in voice, in writing, in sign, in dance, in song, and always in art.” An essential take away in the final months of the International Year of Indigenous Languages, one to be continued over into following years, not to be forgotten.