MARTINE’S STORY I began my professional career as freelance the series called Gungurrunga Ngawa (Look photographer in Sydney in 1999, while also Above). The ethereal beauty of the area’s unique working as photographer and desk editor at The shapes and textures when seen from the air Australian Financial Review. reveal an extraordinary and ancient land. These images were exhibited in October 2015 and are My interest in photojournalism took me to Timor- part of the broader body of work Ngala Wongga Leste in 2003. For the next decade I worked for (Come Talk), documenting the speakers of the the United Nations as a peacekeeping mission Goldfields languages, their connection to the photographer documenting life in conflict zones land and the cultural significance of Australia’s such as Burundi, South Sudan, West Africa (at the endangered languages. height of the Ebola response), East Timor and the Democratic Republic of The Congo. My interest in indigenous communities goes back almost 20 years. In 2002, I was about to Even though those years spent in the field with hop on plane towards the Mornington Islands, my camera were truly rewarding, the nomadic to start a story about remote communities lifestyle took its toll. I needed to drop my suitcase and endangered languages. It was put on hold somewhere peaceful, a place where I could sleep for 13 years as my life took a different turn. and shower safely. I craved open spaces and I went instead to East Timor, to witness the rugged natural beauty that had brought me to independence of the country. Australia in the first place, as a 27-year-old seeking adventure far from my European homeland. It was only last year that I was able to turn my attention back to indigenous languages. My In 2013, I returned to Australia and established a research for the new project on the communities home base in Margaret River. My first project since of the WA Goldfields began in April 2015, in moving to Western Australia was a photographic Perth. It was not long after I arrived back from exhibition and book launch in July 2014, titled West Africa and my work documenting the Margaret River Region FROM ABOVE, a self- response of the UN to the Ebola crisis. I wanted published book on aerial views of the South West to revisit my original idea and start working on region exhibited at The Margaret River Gallery. projects in my own backyard in WA. It was then I In July 2015, I decided to fly over the Western began meeting with the first speakers that would Australian Goldfield’s salt lakes and photograph be part of Ngala Wongga. ABOUT THE EXHIBITION Ngala Wongga is a collaboration with the Aboriginal community in Gungurrunga Ngawa (Look Above) is a series of aerial photographs Goldfields, WA. The conceptual body of multimedia work goes beyond that captures the ethereal beauty and unique shapes and textures of documentary and photojournalism creating an aesthetic and creative the Goldfield’s salt lakes. platform highlighting the Elders connection to land whilst illuminating Using landscapes, portraiture and multimedia Martine Perret’s work the cultural significance of Australia’s endangered languages. intertwines the story of an extraordinary and ancient land, peoples, A series of evocative portraits invites us to engage with each individual language, and culture. and their personal stories enhanced through a poignant and haunting story telling installation. AUSTRALIA’S ENDANGERED LANGUAGES LANGUAGE AND CULTURE INTERTWINED ON THE GOLDFIELDS Around 120 indigenous languages are still spoken in Australia. The 2014 Second National Indigenous Languages Survey found only 13 The interconnectedness of a people with their land, a of these languages could be considered strong. Five languages are now culture and identity expressed with languages that today are in the moderately endangered group and some languages have moved considered endangered led me to ask myself, “What is the into the critically endangered category. Around 100 languages can now future for Australian Indigenous languages?” be described as severely or critically endangered. All over the world, language has played its part in defining It’s a bleaker picture than the first National Indigenous Languages specific cultural groups. Language and culture are so Survey, from 2005. The NILS1 found that of the more than 250 Australian interwoven that it is hard to imagine one surviving without Indigenous languages about 145 were still spoken. About 18 languages the other. If you lose your language, you risk losing your were strong, still spoken by all age groups and being passed on to culture, your oral history, your identity. children. Around 110 languages were severely or critically endangered. “…Aboriginal people also say that languages were put onto There is still hope. Around 30 endangered languages are seeing the land by Tjukurrpa (the Dreaming) beings, and that they significant increases in usage as a result of language programs.1 are therefore linked to specific areas and not necessarily only 1 Community, identity, wellbeing: the report of the Second National Indigenous Languages Survey - Authors Doug to people themselves…”2 Marmion, Kazuko Obata and Jakelin Troy - Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) 2 “Pictures from my memory, My story as a Ngaatjatjarra woman” Lizzie Marrkilyi Ellis EDNA’S STORY Edna was born in 1936 in the bush at Kathleen Valley, in the northern Goldfields. Her birth-name was Minigootha, after her grandmother, but she was given the European name Edna after her mother met Edna Morriati, a woman working at the Kathleen Valley Post Office. Edna Sceghi is one of the last remaining fluent speakers of Tjupan, an endangered language of the Goldfields. Edna’s father Jack Wilcox also called Oobie was from the desert, Mangalee country. As a teenager, he walked out of the desert arriving near Mulga Queen / Laverton. It was late so he lit a small fire for warmth and fell asleep in a shallow hole he had dug. Suddenly, the sound of dog-like howling woke him up. He looked up and spotted a small group of Aboriginal men camped among the branches of a large tree. They made that dog-like howling sound. He recognized them as Ginagurbees, i.e. Featherfoots, top lore men and tribal punishers. Not wanting to be seen by these men, he covered up his fire and walked away as fast as he could. Edna’s father was a Kuwarra speaker, her mother, Daisy, a Tjupan speaker. (They met in Lancefield near Laverton). One of Edna’s earliest memories was piggybacking her brother and sister in order to hide them in the bush from strangers. This was the era of the stolen generation, where children were at risk of being removed from families and relocated to missions. Her sister Lorna was eventually taken and stayed in a mission for 13 years, rarely seeing her family. Edna met her husband, Paulo in 1954. He was born in Sondrio in Italy, eventually making the long journey by boat to establish a new life in Western Australia. He picked up work as a miner in Gwalia before moving on to Wiluna, putting up Edna, 2015 fences, windmills and building water tanks at Barwidgee station. Edna worked a stock woman, a jillaroo, whose job it was to muster sheep. A true Italian, Paulo loved to cook spaghetti and polenta. Edna’s family lived close so she was able to continue speaking Tjupan. Extract from recorded interview with Edna on 19 December 2015 PHYLLIS’ STORY Phyllis Wicker is a Ngadju elder who was After the court case, he could work at born with the help of her grandmother in the mission but could not approach his the bush at N.1 Old Reserve, just outside children. “This was very heartbreaking,” Norseman. She speaks Ngadjumaya, a Phyllis recalls. She stayed at the mission highly endangered Goldfields language. until she was 16 after which she was sent to work “in a household caring for babies and Phyllis was brought up under a ‘minda/wilja’ (a small shelter made from mulga branches) doing all types of housework” at a station until she was sent to the mission along with in Gibson. her siblings. Phyllis’s father was from the Later on in life Phyllis, with children of Ngadju people and her mother a Nyungar her own, took care of the town’s elderly. from Esperance. Phyllis has four brothers and She also helped look after other mission three sisters. children, reuniting them with their families Her father knew how to read and write and while taking on the role of ‘mum’ to those was well travelled. He was asked by the kids who had none. missionaries, “You are an educated man. Do Many white kids growing up in Norseman you want to send your kids to the mission so call Phyllis affectionately ‘Aunty Phyllis’ or they can go to school and learn how to read ‘the damper lady’. She is an Elder highly and write like you?” Believing that this was respected by all the Norseman community, the right thing to do, he agreed. Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. All the children were sent to the Norseman Extract from recorded interview with Phyllis mission (renamed later to Tjirntuparapara, and Valma in Norseman on 8 May 2016 meaning ‘Sun rising over the lake’). The mission was located 15km north of town. “After an 18 year legal battle, the Ngadju Phyllis, 2016 Six months later, Phyllis’s father was taken people’s traditional ownership of 102,000 to court and charged for neglect for not square kilometres of land surrounding providing maintenance for his children care the town of Norseman was recognised, at the mission.