Title

Being Tiwi.

Venues

Museum of Contemporary Art [Sydney]. (21 December 2015 – 21 February 2016)

Artspace Mackay. (18 March 2016 – 8 May 2016)

Tandanya: National Aboriginal Culture Institute (18 November 2016 – 22 January 2017)

Moree Plains Gallery (10 February 2017 – 14 March 2017)

Murray Art Museum. (28 April 2017 – 25 June 2017)

Glasshouse Port Macquarie (7 July 2017 – 1 September 2017)

Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery (7 October 2017 – 2017)

Date

(2015 – 2017)

Curator

Natasha Bullock and Keith Munro

Abstract

Being Tiwi bought together prints and paintings by nine artists from Australia’s Tiwi Islands. Located to the north of Darwin in the Northern Territory at the juncture of the Arafura and Timor seas, Bathurst and Melville islands are home to the Tiwi people – the fiercely independent, culturally unique, traditional owners of the land. ‘Tiwi’ loosely translates as ‘one people’, and island culture is characterised by a shared belief in the need to keep Tiwi customs alive.

The artworks in Being Tiwi highlighted how contemporary ideas and visual forms connect to and express transformations in culture. Tiwi motifs and designs (known as Jilamara) draw on a range of influences, the most important being the body painting which accompanies two significant Tiwi ceremonies: Kulama, which celebrates life, and Pukumani, a complex funereal ritual.

Bridging the past and the present, Being Tiwi included the first prints produced on the islands in 1969 along with work recently acquired for the MCA Collection and new work commissioned specifically for the exhibition. From the intricate to the gestural, and using yellow, red and white ochres sourced from the islands’ environs, these artworks highlighted the distinctiveness of Tiwi iconography. [MCA publicity]