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Tag Archives: Yolngu
The Poetry of Geography
I grew up near the ocean. For the first eighteen years of my life a twenty-minute walk would bring me to docks and lapping waves, sand and seaweed and salt air. I didn’t know how much a part of me … Continue reading
Larrakirtj: Encyclopedia of the Yolngu
On our first trip to Australia in 1990, still largely ignorant of Aboriginal art (despite the trip being inspired in large part by the Dreamings exhibition seen at the Asia Society in New York CIty two years earlier), we hit … Continue reading
Gurtha
Gurtha is fire. The fire is inextinguishable. One story tells how Baru, the ancestral crocodile man, was camped in a bark hut with his wife, the blue-tongued lizard. She was cooking snails over the fire, but after an argument, she … Continue reading
The Djang’kawu Come to America
Last weekend we were back at Dartmouth College to hear Howard Morphy deliver the Montgomery Endowment Lecture as part of the fellowship that has him and his wife, Frances, in residence at the College this semester. He chose as his … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropology, Art, Culture
Tagged Crossing Cultures, Djang'kawu, Exhibitions, Hood Museum of Art, Howard Morphy, Yirrkala, Yolngu
1 Comment
Thinking about Nyapanyapa
I’ve been thinking a lot about Nyapanyapa Yunupingu lately. My first encounter with her work was at the 25th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2008 when her Incident at Mutpi (1975) won the Wandjuk Marika 3D Memorial … Continue reading
Christmas Spirit
Darwinians, mark your calendars. Top Enders and outsiders, make your reservations. Christmas is coming to town. And you do not want to miss it this year. On December 7, at the Chan Contemporary Art Space in Darwin’s CBD, Miyarrka Media … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropology, Communities, Film
Tagged Exhibitions, Gapuwiyak, Jennifer Deger, Yolngu
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Topsoil
Our flight home to the United States left from Sydney, so our last day was spent back in the temperate sunshine down south. We ended our three-week residency by returning to the Sydney Opera House once more to see Bangarra’s … Continue reading
Canberra! Sydney!
Canberra was awesome. I have to admit I never thought I’d say that. I have to give the credit to our hosts all along the way. Kristian Pithie warmly welcomed us to the Chapman Gallery with its lovely show of … Continue reading
Eating Our Shadows
Four years ago this week, in 2007, I was touring through community based art centres in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, buoyed by the recent outpourings of support for the art centres that had emerged from the Senate Inquiry … Continue reading
Side by Side, Yolngu and Balanda
In his article, “Mutual Conversion?: The Methodist Church and the Yolngu,with particular reference to Yirrkala” (Humanities Research, vol. XII, no. 1, 2005, pp. 41-53), Howard Morphy essays a preliminary history of the Methodist Overseas Mission in Arnhem Land. Admitting that … Continue reading
