Tag Archives: Yirrkala

Yolngu Songmen: Seven Star Band

Posted on December 29, 2013 by Will

Each year at Christmastime I try to kick back a little and instead of putting together an essay, I try to offer a little lighter entertainment: photographs, or short reading lists, or something similar.  This year, it’s time for some … Continue reading →

Posted in Music | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Gamechanger

Posted on October 27, 2013 by Will

It’s been a decade now since Buku-Larrnggay Mulka and Bill Gregory presented Buwayak: Invisibility at the Annandale Galleries in Sydney, an exhibition that heralded an extraordinary new direction in painting from Yirrkala.  If you look at Yolngu painting from just a few … Continue reading →

Posted in Art | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

A Short Trip to Melbourne, Warmun, and Yirrkala

Posted on July 21, 2013 by Will

I’m a little short on time this weekend, so I’m going to punt and offer a selection of short topics that have been kicking about on my desktop recently. The first is an alert to a wonderful new website/blog produced … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Communities | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

The Djang’kawu Come to America

Posted on October 28, 2012 by Will

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 , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Stars

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Will

If I were inventing epithets for Australia, in the manner of a vernacular Homer, I might call it “the star-strewn country.” There are the desert stories of the Minyma Tjuta, the seven sisters who fled across the continent from the … Continue reading →

Posted in Art | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Side by Side, Yolngu and Balanda

Posted on May 15, 2011 by Will

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 →

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Yalangbara: Art of the Djang’kawu

Posted on February 27, 2011 by Will

The National Museum of Australia has been achieving remarkable successes with one extraordinary exhibition of Indigenous art and history after another; and I say “art and history” deliberately, for these shows, Papunya Painting: Out of the Desert, Yiwarra Kuju: the … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Culture | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Teach Your Children

Posted on October 10, 2010 by Will

When I first visited Yirrkala and the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre in 2005, Will Stubbs described to me his dream of building a multimedia centre and library.  At that time, his dream consisted of some ceramic tiles that might adorn the … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Culture, Film | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Nathan B and the Hiphop Mulka

Posted on January 16, 2008 by Will

Check out this excellent slice of Mulka Project hiphop, performed by Nathan B and filmed at Yirrkala. Lots of the action was shot inside the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre and down at Yirrkala Creek just across the road. Yolngu Land 

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Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre, Yirrkala, NT

Posted on November 4, 2007 by Will

We arrived at the Gove Airport in the wake of a sudden downpour that left the runways and the red earth puddled and the air feeling like the Wet wasn’t quite gone yet. On the way to the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka … Continue reading →

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