Through town, aross the creek, and follow the signs past the old car and the Boab tree to...
I was in Katherine earlier last week with a few days to spare – I thought about going out south-west of Katherine to Yarralin and some other small towns in the Victoria River district to catch up with some old people to talk about birds but decided to head further west and pushed on to Kununurra and points south-west…
Kununurra holds little interest for me – it is all a bit too new and expensive. There is a nice man-made lake near the town and it attracts hordes of the increasing numbers of grey nomads that spend their winter months in the north dragging around enormous caravans behind near-new four wheel drives at a constant speed of about 80 km/h.
They clog up the roads, caravan parks and roadside stops where they spend their time talking to other grey nomads talking about the high price of fuel, the many and various techniques for fettling a caravan and the many variations on bumper stickers that trumpet “Don’t tell the kids, Mum and Pop on the run with their inheritance” and similar.
Enough of them.
Anyway, I camped outside of Kununurra near to one of the afore-mentioned roadside stops where that other scourge of the dry-season roads of the north – the backpackers cruising around in “Wicked” campervans – did their best to have a rave party a hundred metres or so away from my camp while the moon rose through the trees and the cattle road trains thundered westwards in search of a load.
The next day and a couple of hundred of kilometres later I found myself in Warmun – previously known as Turkey Creek – which flows through the town.
Warmun is a on small excision (as we would know it in the NT) cut out from the surrounding cattle station.
Most people in the community are from the Gija language group that owns (at Aboriginal law at least) a large area surrounding the township.
With a fluctuating population of about 500 in Warmun and another few hundred people living at homeland communities serviced by the town, is one of the largest Aboriginal communities in Western Australia.
Gija people appear to have taken a refreshingly strategic approach to economic development in their region .
Driving the 200-plus kilomreres down from Kununurra the only services along the route is the Aboriginal-owned Doon Doon Roadhouse and the local caravan park and roadhouse in Warmun – only place to stay in town – is also owned and operated by Gija people.
Both are dry – so if you want a drink you have a long way to north to Kununurra or south to Halls Creek to quench a thirst.
Warmun Art centre gallery
And the Warmun Arts Centre is also locally owned, operated and easy to find – drive through town, across Turkey Creek and past the old rusty car and the ancient Boab tree, follow the signs and there you are at a new(-ish), large and light-filled gallery of local art.
I’ve not had a lot to do with art from the east Kimberley and was unaware that most (all but the prints) of the material produced at Warmun is based on locally-sourced and coursely-ground ochres.
This gives a wonderful rough texture to each of the paintings and some beautiful tones – particularly the variations from the red and yellow ochres of the area, which provide a wide range of colours – from soft pastel washes to a wide range of hard browns and reds that are particularly effective on the landscape paintings.
Warmun has been running as an Art Centre since 1998 but local people have been painting publicly since the late nineteen seventies and the walls of the public buildings, particularly the local school, are covered in a wide and vibrant range of images.
Apparently a lot of this earlier work has been collected for a local museum with support from the Australian National Gallery in Canberra. I’ll try to catch up with that collection when I pass through Warmun again later in the year.
The main reason for my travel to Warmun was to get a better look at the work of, and make contact with several of the local artists who paint bird stories grounded in the local landscape and culture.
Thanks to the staff at the Arts Centre I was able to get a better idea of who paints bird stories at Warmun and a better idea of the number of species that locals paint the stories of. I’ll be in touch with the artists through the local Council and the Arts Centre to arrange my next trip.
And if you want to find out more about the extraordinary artists – both past and present – and their art go to the Warmun Arts Centre site here – and if you contact the Arts Centre they’ll tell you where the several exhibitions planned for later this year.
You need a permit to enter the Warmun community living area and the Arts Centre – but if you call (08) 9168 7496 it is easy enough to arrange over the phone.
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Overcoming “Indigenous” Disadvantage – and the disadvantage of terminology.
In my opinion “indigenous”, as it is used in relation to “the Intervention” and all that is associated with that term – is NOT about people, and its not even about paedophilia – instead it is about programs, policies, power & politics – as well as exploitation, abuse, failure.
Once upon a time I criticised the term Aboriginal – and the imposition of that stylised identity by the colonisers as a collective identity for mainland Aboriginal Australians. And while the terms ‘Aborigine’ and ‘Aboriginal’ are still among the most disputed in contemporary Australian language, the all-encompassing term of “indigenous” is not only unsuitable but highly inappropriate and extremly misleading. The term Aboriginal Australian or Australian Aboriginal itself is a wholly consumptive way in which Anglo/Other Australia goes about integrating a range of different aspects of diverse Aboriginal clans, their ideals, aspirations, philosophies, knowledges, politics, religious and cultural tenets and ceremonial practices. However, the term “indigenous” has been adopted as yet another Australian way of grouping together peoples who they know and understand little about, simply so as to to accommodate their limited understandings and out of their laziness and disinterest.
Australians may have got away with the pan-Aboriginal identity thing in the past but the pan-indigenous identity categorisation of people leaves a broad and wide-open scope for almost anyone to take advantage of. Yes, true there were huge problems with the government/ATSIC definitions too, but they were much clearer to negotiate and to be understood in comparison to the carte blanche use of the term “indigenous”. At least the colonists, who assisted in the creation of the term Aboriginal and therefore ‘Aboriginal identity’ did so in part to satisfy their own understandings of the Other. Aboriginal Australians, in the most part, accepted this identity too. However, nothing can take away the point that, whether this adoption of new identity was both clearly determined and determining [See: Bain Attwood, The Making of the Aborigines (1989)] the term Aboriginal/Aborigine has dispossessed these people of their separate identities. Placing Aboriginal people now in the neat little homogenous group known as “indigenous” further dispossesses and disadvantages – and regardless of the multiculturalism that supposedly thrives in the broader Australian community, or the “spirit of reconciliation” which supposedly unites Aboriginal and mainstream Australia, disadvantage – regardless of the flashy new identity of “indigenous” continues. It continues to strip, indeed further rob Aboriginal people of their basic human rights as citizens of Australia and it prevents them from being equal participants in the overall Australian social contract.
I listened to Rudd on Darwin TV last night talking about “overcoming indigenous advantage” – the only way Rudd, Macklin, Henderson et al (including all the same olds (Aboriginal and Other) sitting around the round tables – is to give full citizenship rights to all Aboriginal Australians, including giving them the right to self-identify and to be in charge of their own futures. Aboriginal people MUST have an Aboriginal Minister! Its time!!
I’m tired of people stating that there is no Aboriginal leadership – there are many strong and good leaders – and I’m not talking about the consultants and advisors and the “community managers” and other tyrants. A question to be asked here is – where are all the good and strong non-Aboriginal leaders in government?
Most affected by the NT Intervention are disadvantaged, homeless and are refugees within their own country, this land Australia. Government has to address “indigenous disadvanatage” the same way problems are addressed in relation to international refugees and migrants – re re-settlement: social security, jobs, health, education, equity, restore dignity. It is time to turn “indigenous” away from “industry” and restore or introduce some integrity.
Last: Rudd acts almost shocked to hear about the level of Aboriginal disadvantage – what rock did he live under in Queensland?
Sue Stanton
Of course I meant Rudd and “overcoming indigenous disadvantage” – although I can hear many out there already screaming about “Aboriginal advantage”.
sue stanton
Dear Bob,
I work at the Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University. Each year we put together a calendar to give free (ie no charge, no revenue raised) to farmers who participate in our wildlife research to thank them for their involvement and to raise awareness about wildlife conservation.
We would like to use the picture of the Australian Owlet-nightjar photographed by Gloria Morales. If you know her contacts, could you please let me know (ichisachi@hotmail.com).
Apology for asking such a thing in the comment.
Kind Regards,
Sachiko
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