The Tamarra (Termite Mound) exhibition at the Arthouse Café-Gallery at Charles Darwin University presents a series of paintings inspired by termites and their connection to Gurindji Country (located in remote Northern Territory). Comprising individual and collaborative artworks by First Nation and non-Indigenous artists, this exhibition is the first public outcome of the Tamarra: Gurindji Termite Project.
Exhibiting artists: Violet Wadrill, Leah Leaman, Kathleen Sambo, Cecelia Edwards, Caroline Jimmy, Rosemary Johnson, Joanne Stevens, Lucy Tanami, Magdalene Winbye, Margaret Winbye, Roberta Winbye, Martina Mandijerry, Cassandra Algy, Narelle Morris, Sophia Donnelly Patterson, Serena Donald, Penny Smith, Briony Barr, Gregory Crocetti.
Created over a four months of intercultural and interdisciplinary collaboration (facilitated through Karungkarni Art and Culture and with linguist Felicity Meakins), many of the paintings presented in this exhibition have been incorporated into a new children’s picturebook manuscript.
Co-authored and illustrated by over thirty collaborators, the story is written in Gurindji, Gurindji Kriol and English. It is inspired by the web of ecological and cultural relationships around termites and termite mounds; from their symbiotic partnerships with gut bacteria and spinifex grasses to their connections to Gurindji people as a source of food and an important bush medicine.
Tamarra: Gurindji Termite Project is supported by the Aboriginals Benefit Account, the Indigenous Languages & Arts program, the Australia Council for the Arts and the ARC Centre for Excellence for The Dynamics of Language.