Yingapungapu Sand Sculpture Gabrieldjambawa Nodea, Marawili ANKA AM, Deputy ANKA Chairperson Chairperson & Jedda Puruntatameri Christina Davidson, ANKA CEO
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ANKA Cultural Legacy Program and Intro to Issue WelcomeSupport for Cultural Legacy Sea Rights 10 Year AnniversaryCEO - Yingapungapu Sand Sculpture GabrielDjambawa Nodea, Marawili ANKA AM, Deputy ANKA Chairperson Chairperson & Jedda Puruntatameri Christina Davidson, ANKA CEO Darwin Office GPO BOX 2152, DARWIN of country, animals, seasons, weather created for ceremony in North East These scooped out hollows became NORTHERN TERRITORY, AUSTRALIA 0801 patterns and the natural world. We are Arnhem Land, especially for funerals the model for the Yingapungapu Sand Ph +61 (0) 8 8981 6134 also materially poor, and our people and cleansing rituals. Sand sculpture Sculpture. Email [email protected] have levels of serious illness, which are can be both impermanent, designed www.anka.org.au completely unacceptable in a rich country Facebook: ANKA - Arnhem Northern & like Australia. for use only for the duration of the The Wuradilaku women and the Kimberley Artists, Aboriginal Corporation ceremony, or permanent. In the case story of the Yingapungapu links three To continue the important work of looking of the new Yingapungapu Sea Rights peninsulas in the north of Blue Mud after Australia’s first high culture, we need Northern Kimberley and Arnhem Aboriginal Artists, Sand Sculpture it is planned that after Bay: Garrapara of the Dhalwangu Aboriginal Corporation (ANKA) is the peak body more respect and understanding. We need for Aboriginal artists and 48 Aboriginal owned Above: Djambawa Marawili AM, Madarrpa wider Australia to properly understand the July 30 celebrations, a fence will Gumana clan, Baniyala (Yilpara) of community Art Centres in: the Kimberley, Arnhem Clan leader/ANKA Chair, Baniyala Homeland, that in the homelands, in our communities be constructed, and the sand will be the Madarrpa clan and Djarrakpi of Land, Tiwi Islands and Katherine/Darwin regions sand sculpture. Image: Creative Cowboys. on Country, we are caring for the oldest of Northern Australia. ANKA is a fully Indigenous reinforced into a permanent memorial the Manggalili clan, and demonstrates living culture on earth; and we are the only governed not-for-profit Aboriginal Corporation. Today we have two main important ways on the ancient beach-front ceremonial the connection of places, patterns and Founded in 1987, ANKA is Australia’s first peak people qualified to look after this global of looking after our Indigenous cultural body for Indigenous art. inheritance. These are not just words about ground at Baniyala - for the next names across the land and sea that heritage on Country. One is adapted a distant imagined past; this is reality. We generations to remember and respect. are the foundation for ‘sea rights’.’ from western models of museums, keeping This publication contains the names of need support for our self-determination to places or libraries, as places to store Aboriginal people who have passed care for the seeds of a shared future for all away. precious objects, documents, images and Australians. Yolngu sand sculpture can be open The two Larrakitj (ceremonial poles) digital imagery, so they are there for future Above:Yingapungapu Sea Rights Sand Sculpture, The artists, Art Centres and/or ANKA own the Baniyala Homeland, Blue Mud Bay, Arnhem Land, and accessible to everyone and also inside the Yingapungapu, one Yirritja generations. You see that in our remote Art How many Australians today know the copyright of all text and images contained in this 1 ‘Our Sea Rights - Celebrating the 10th Anniversary contain deeper understanding which and one Dhuwa, represent the six Centre-based community collections. long-time stories of the country they live on? publication. Photographs have been taken by of the Australian High Court Blue Mud Bay Sea requires more knowledge and context homeland clan groups which make up ANKA Staff, unless stated otherwise. ANKA Arts Or can speak an Indigenous language? Rights Decision.’ Image: Andrew Blake. Another is the old ways of transmitting Backbone is © ANKA. We are willing to share our richness, our to read. the Djalkiripuyngu [foot-print people] traditional knowledge, which many knowledge, with all Australians to build a When the 10th anniversary of the of Blue Mud Bay. The views and opinions expressed in this Australian’s don’t understand still live future for us all, we can be proud of. 2 publication are those of the authors and do not on today. This is traditional Indigenous Australian High Court, Blue Mud Bay The Djalkiripuyngu elders of Blue necessarily reflect those of ANKA. knowledge sustained through storytelling, I call on government and the private sector Sea Rights decision was celebrated at Mud Bay explain: There will now be four permanent caring for Country, and in our many Editor: to make tangible steps to respect our Baniyala (Yilpara) homeland in Blue sand sculptures at Baniyala. The giant Christina Davidson Indigenous languages; and also in Issue Coordination: Jill Pope & Talitha Klevjer cultural legacy. To support the crucial work Mud Bay, North East Arnhem Land, ‘Today, the Djalkiripuyngu release the ancestral sting ray Lulumu, created ceremonial practice and Law. This Design: being done through community collections 1 Jill Pope & Talitha Klevjer ceremony, with its rich and complex song on July 30th 2018 , art once again sacred patterns and designs of their well before the Madarrpa walked Cover Image: John Mawurndjul, 1992, Mimih in remote Art Centres; and by cultural and dance cycles, and inherited patterns, Spirit, earth pigments and synthetic polymer paint maintenance programs, proven to also played a central role. sea country, housed in the central back to their homeland in the 1970’s. on wood. Image: Saul Steed courtesy of Art designs and objects, passed down from support health and wellbeing. canoe shape of the Yingapungapu The Yingapungapu, located behind our ancestors, is Australia’s first high culture. Gallery of South Australia and Maningrida Art & In 2008 the Salt Water Collection sand sculpture. the community in the burial area of Culture. Our opera as well as our law. Government funding for First Nations culture of 80 paintings of sea Country (by ancestors Djambawa and Marawili, made up just 1% of total direct expenditure ANKA is proudly supported by: It is time that Australia recognises that caring for Indigenous Australians in 2015-2016 47 Yolngu artists from 15 clans The Wuradilaku sisters were said created by Mundukul Marawili, also for this high culture in remote Australia and cultural outcomes have not featured in and 18 homeland communities of to hide from men; who fished and prior to the Baniyala community. is every bit as important as looking after 2 the measurement framework . To achieve North East Arnhem Land), provided collected shellfish off-shore from the The Narra, sacred men’s business mainstream high culture in the cities. the outcomes we need for our health, wellbeing and heritage, this must change. important evidence for the granting coastal dunes. They covered their sand sculpture, created by Wakuby In the homelands across remote Australia, A minimum of 5% of the Indigenous of sea rights to the Aboriginal people bodies with sheets of stringy bark or Marawili; and the new sea rights traditional ceremony and culture is cared for Advancement Strategy funds needs to be of the Northern Territory. A decade hid inside giant shells. When they Yingapungapu representing the six and practiced as part of the contemporary allocated to the Culture and Capability on, a new Yingapungapu Sea Rights had eaten their fill, they buried the clan groups of the Djalkiripuyngu world. This knowledge is still passed on, stream, with guidelines to support cultural from parent to child to grandchild, through maintenance activities. Culture has the Sand Sculpture has been designed at fish remains in shallow scooped out (Dhuwa and Yirritja) which is the the generations. Sustained by repetition power to make people strong. Baniyala homeland to educate and ovals in the sand where maggots vision of Djambawa Marawili, Waka and immersion. Traditional culture survives, memorialise Aboriginal relationship to gathered to clean up the remnants. Munungul, Gunybi Ganambarr and despite serious disruptions and challenges, With the support of wider Australia, we sea and land Country. several younger generation cultural in ceremony and in the art we share with can turn around the tide, close the gap, the mainstream. and build a shared pathway and future for 2 The Djalkiripuyngu (footprint people) caretakers, made to memorialise sea the next generations. Today sand sculpture is regularly are Yolngu from the Manggalili, rights. In our homelands living on our ancestral Gumana Dhalwangu, Wunungmurra (Gurrumuru) Dhalwangu, Dhupuditj Country, we are culturally rich with our Many messages about the importance Dhalwangu, Munyuku, Yithuwa Madarrpa, inherited language, song, dance, patterns, of culture have been given by Aboriginal Yingapungapu sand sculptures stories and knowledge of the details 1 On the 30th July 2008 The High Court of Nyungudupuy Madarrpa, Gupa-Djapu, peoples, over the years. We need them to Australia confirmed that traditional owners of Dhudi-Djapu, Marrangu, Marrakulu, and reflecting on sea Country were also be heard and acknowledged. the Blue Mud Bay region in north-east Arnhem Nurrurawu Dha-puyngu (Dhurili/Durila) clans constructed outside the Museum of Land, together with traditional owners of which live together around Blue Mud Bay 1 See: Safe Keeping: A Report on the Care almost the entire Northern Australian coastline at the Baniyala, Wandawuy, Gan Gan, Contemporary Art in Sydney in 1996 and Management of Art Centre-based 2 Australia Council for the Arts, Submission to the Closing the Gap Refresh, April 2018. have exclusive access rights to tidal waters Dhuruputjpi, Bälma, Rurrangala, Barraratjpi, and at the opening of the National Community Collections, University of overlying Aboriginal land. https://www.nlc. Djarrakpi, Baygurrtji and Gurkawuy Melbourne & ANKA, 2017. org.au/our-land-sea/sea-country-rights. homelands. Museum in Canberra in 2001. 2 ARTS BACKBONE – WELCOME Vol.