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Ngaanyatjarra Regional
Arts
Irrunytju Arts  Kayili Artists Papulankutja Artists Warburton Arts Project
Warburton
Arts Project
[Adapted from Gary Proctor, 'Warburton Arts Project' in S. Kleinhert
and M. Neale (eds), Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture,
Oxford University Press, 2000.]
The Warburton Arts project was established in 1990 in Warburton Ranges
Community to maintain and strengthen contemporary Ngaanyatjarra culture
in the field of the arts.
 Ngaanyatjarra
people have a strong sense of identity, maintain their customs and common
interests and importantly, live within their own traditional lands.
A former nomadic lifestyle is still within living memory for many Aboriginal
people involved within the Warburton Arts Project.
The specific conditions of this marginalised Aboriginal group has meant
that the project shares both long term and short term objectives. In
the short term a need exists for the gathering and storing of information
which records the collective and individual cultural knowledge and view.
In the long term a consideration of the future possible needs of coming
generations of Aboriginal people is seen as crucial. This has led to
the establishment of an archive of mixed media material and a database
owned and kept by the community in Warburton.
To support this archive, an acrylic painting program was established
in 1990 to give Aboriginal artists free access to good quality materials.
The community made provision to purchase paintings from its members
into a permanent collection housed in Warburton. This decision represented
a shift in the usual values ascribed to such work. Whereas previously
it was made for sale to an art marketplace, now it was recast as a depository
for cultural knowledge and a container for shifting power relations.
The paintings support a database, which includes genealogies, site locations,
personal narratives, video and magnetic tape recordings, text and photographs.
There are more than 350 paintings in the Warburton Acrylic Collection.
Other initiatives include: a rock art program, assistance with inma
(singing and dancing) and ceremonies, publications and exhibitions,
and community based arts based programs. These initiatives work within
current Aboriginal protocols and follow gender and generationally based
guidelines. Examples of this are the separate curatage of men’s
and women’s paintings in the acrylic collection, and the established
recording studio at Warburton, which caters for a younger generation
of Aboriginal people.
Acknowledging the need for an economic base in the community has brought
about the construction of an art glass facility, which has both architectural
and domestic applications. It has been crucial to create a working environment
under the definitions of productivity held by Ngaanyatjarra people,
to operate within their time frames, and to conceive a process which
makes the technology equally accessible to all age groups. Art glass
designed and made by community members is now represented in many public
and private collections in Australia and other countries.
The Arts Project has conducted programmes with Aboriginal people from
other communities in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands besides Warburton, including
Karilwara (Patjarr), Wingellina (Irrunytju), Blackstone (Papulankutja),
Kiwirrkura, Jameson (Mantamaru), Tjirrkarli, Wanarn, Tjukurla and Warakurna.
Artists are represented in numerous private and public collections including
those held by the Araluen Arts Centre, Artbank, Australian Heritage
Commission, Australian High Commission Malaysia, ArtsWA, Curtin University,
Chase Manhattan bank, Museum and Art Gallery of NT, WA Museum.
WAP Selected Exhibition History
- Minymalu Kanyirranytja:
A Western Desert Women’s Aesthetic – Street Level Gallery,
Sydney, 1989
- Yarnangu Ngaanya
– Our Land, Our Body
- Goldfields Arts Board, The Attic, Kalgoorlie Miner Building, 1991
- Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and S H Ervin Gallery, Sydney,
1993
- Bush Women –
Fremantle Arts Centre, 1994
- Tjukurrpa –
Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 1994
- Bowled Over
– Savode Gallery, Brisbane, 1997
- Telstra National
Aboriginal Art Award – Museum and Art Gallery of NT, Darwin,
1997
- Desert Mob Art
Show – Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, 1997/1998
- Groundwork –
Fremantle Arts Centre, 1998
- Ngayulu-latju
Palyantja: We made these things
- Australian High Commission, Kuala Lumpur, 1998
- Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre; djamu gallery: Australian Museum
at Customs House, Sydney; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth,
1999
- Tjulyuru Regional Arts Gallery, Warburton, 2000
- Tjulyuru On
A Journey – Artplace, Perth 2001
- Tjulyurungkutalamartajti
– Works from the Tjulyuru Cultural and Civic Centre, Aboriginal
and Pacific Arts Gallery, Sydney, 2001
- Mission time
in Warburton - Tjulyuru Regional Arts Gallery, Warburton, 2002
- Warburton One
& Only – painted earthenware by women from the Mirlirrtjarra
Ceramics Centre, Warburton community, central Australia, Mori Gallery,
Sydney, 2002
- Blake Prize
for Religious Art 2002 - Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, 2002 (national
tour 2003)
- Future Function
- Ceramics exhibition surveying domestic ware (Mirlirrtjarra Ceramics
in collaboration with Toni Warburton and Patricia Dean), Manly Art
Gallery & Museum, Sydney, 2003
For more information
please contact:
Warburton Arts Project
c/- Warburton Community
PMB 71 via Alice Springs NT 0871 Australia
ph +61 8 8954 0017 fax +61 8 8954 0047
avwarbarts@bigpond.com
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