ritual
WE ACKNOWLEDGE THE GIMUY WALUBARRA YIDINJI AND YIRRGANYDJI AS THE TRADITIONAL OWNERS OF THE AREA TODAY KNOWN AS CAIRNS
COVER Simone ARNOL Gunggandji Born Cairns, Queensland Bernard SINGLETON Jnr Umpila/Djabugay/Yirrgay Born Cairns, Queensland Medicine clay (detail) 2019-2020
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^ Chan-Kyong PARK Born Seoul, Korea, 1965 Manshin: Ten thousand spirits 2013
ritual the past in the present
INDIGENOUS NORTH AUSTRALIAN AND ASIA PACIFIC ART A CAIRNS ART GALLERY EXHIBITION PRESENTED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE CAIRNS INDIGENOUS ART FAIR
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists Simone ARNOL and Bernard SINGLETON Jnr Elisa Jane CARMICHAEL Janet FIELDHOUSE Carl FOURMILE Dale HARDING with Hayley MATTHEW Naomi HOBSON Heather Wunjarra KOOWOOTHA Peggy Kasabad LANE Grace Lillian LEE Stephen George PAGE AO Alair PAMBEGAN Arthur Koo’ekka PAMBEGAN Jnr Brian ROBINSON Joel SAM Dr Christian THOMPSON AO Asia-Pacific artists Abdul ABDULLAH Jumaadi Trina LEALAVAA Taloi HAVINI and Michael TOISUTA Phuong NGO Chan-Kyong PARK Koji RYUI Greg SEMU Angela TIATIA Charwei TSAI Fijian Tevutevu Ceremony of Wilfred and Ada Bowie Vilimone Baleilevuka MATAIWAI Tabuadrau RATABUA Adi Vuya TALEMAIKADAVU Unknown artists
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contents
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Foreword Andrea May Churcher Director, Cairns Art Gallery
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Circular time: Connecting with kin, community and memory Freja Carmichael Quandamooka curator and writer
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A prayer to be haunted Micheal Do Curator, Contemporary art at the Sydney Opera House, Australia
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List of works
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Acknowledgements
> Janet FIELDHOUSE Kala Lagaw Ya/Meriam Mir Born Cairns, Queensland, 1971 Installation image
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< Naomi HOBSON Southern Kaantju/Umpila Born Coen, Cape York, Queensland, 1979 The God Parents 2020-2021
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director’s foreword Andrea May Churcher Ritual: the past in the present is an ambitious project based on many years of research and extensive cross-cultural conversations. It builds on the Gallery’s established reputation for exploring and interpreting the many complex narratives, histories, traditions, beliefs and issues of Australian Indigenous artists and other cultures within the Asia Pacific region and the world’s tropic zone.
In 2020, as the Gallery was poised to bring together works for the Ritual exhibition, news of the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world. As countries closed their borders and travel between Australian states and territories in Australia ceased, the Gallery paused its exhibition and public programs indefinitely. This was the prevailing situation that prompted Micheal Do, one of the commissioned writers for the supporting exhibition, to write in his essay’ During this confusing kaleidoscope [COVID-19], humanity has responded - both by instinct and design - to refashion and reassert rituals in the most striking ways, using activities to formalise and mark time… Old rituals were paused, while new rituals took their place. One of the defining characteristics of ritual is a recurrent act based on the concept of passage and transformation to bring the past into the present. In the exhibition this is explored through a juxtaposition of commissioned and loan works by Australian Indigenous and Asian Pacific artists who share understandings of cultural knowledge and beliefs, while exploring contemporary issues around identity and cultural continuity. What is deeply interesting and what both Micheal Do and Freja Carmichael point to in their respective essays is the way in which artists from different geographical, cultural and social frameworks parallel ways of interpreting and enacting contemporary issues and conditions as a reflective and reflexive response to rituals that are steeped in culture and in times long passed.
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Whether it is for reasons of otherness, or in response to a perceived similarity, this exhibition seeks to ask questions and encourage conversations prompted by the ways in which contemporary artists look to rituals as a way of interpreting and commenting on issues of cultural identity in today’s world. From the outset, artists selected for this exhibition embraced the exhibition concept, and welcomed the opportunity to complete commissioned works or to make existing works available for the exhibition. We are indebted to the artists, their galleries and the private lenders for their generosity in lending works and for rescheduling commitments to accommodate the 12-month delay to the exhibition dates at the Gallery. I would like to warmly thank both commissioned writers, Micheal Do and Freja Carmichael, for their extensive research and in-depth conversations with the exhibiting artists which have brought an immediacy and depth of understanding to their respective essays for this publication. This exhibition would not have been possible without the commitment and determination of the Gallery’s curatorial team, led by senior curator Julietta Park, and curators Teho Ropeyarn and Kylie Burke. I am also indebted to Kelly Jaunzems Gallery manager, who has worked tirelessly on coordinating the content and design of this publication. Andrea May Churcher Director
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> Stephen George PAGE AO Nunukul, Munaldjali Born Brisbane, Queensland,1965 Spear 2015
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Circular time: Connecting with kin, community and memory Freja Carmichael Ritual: The past in the present embodies the interconnected relationship that exists between past and present time across Country, lands, waters and nations. This group exhibition creates a shared space where the customs, ideas and stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people converge with artists from the Asia and Pacific regions through artistic manifestations of ritual practices. The featured artists communicate how spiritual, historical, physical and contemporary engagements with ceremonial understandings and processes align with their ancestral origins and traditions of place. With their inherent groundings in the past, this collection of works celebrates the vitality of today’s expressions of cultural identity and experience. This essay discusses the work of participating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists in this exhibition, who include community Elders and leaders, family groups and senior artists working in collaboration with collective memory, or with their kin and community, to nurture, honour and proudly share their heritage in visual contexts. These artists are Simone Arnol and Bernard Singleton Jnr, Elisa Jane Carmichael, Janet Fieldhouse, Carl Fourmile, Dale Harding with Hayley Matthew, Naomi Hobson, Heather Wunjarra Koowootha, Peggy Kasabad Lane, Grace Lillian Lee, Stephen George Page AO, Alair Pambegan, Arthur Koo’ekka Pambegan Jr, Brian Robinson, Joel Sam, and Dr Christian Thompson AO. Also contextualised in this text is the cross-cultural installation, Fijian Tevutevu Ceremony of Wilfred and Ada Bowie.
> Vilimone Baleilevuka MATAIWAI Vatani, Kaba, Fiji Born Fiji, 1967 Fijian Tevutevu Ceremony of Wilfred & Ada Bowie 2018
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The many rituals represented by these artists show the diversity, complexity and strength of cultural practices that are alive in adaptive knowledges and traditions. This is explored in video, installation, sculpture, photography, print and drawing mediums that describe diverse rituals surrounding life cycles, healing and renewing, and spiritual practices. The collection of artworks naturally overlaps and intertwines with the varying perspectives inherent in each artist’s cultural background.
Life cycles relate to the ceremonies that Ancestors have long practised to mark important passages of time for individuals and community, including initiations, weddings and death. Anchoring this theme and the exhibition’s overall focus on crosscultural intersections is the installation Fijian Tevutevu Ceremony of Wilfred and Ada Bowie 2018-21, which recreates the 2018 wedding of Wilfred and Ada Bowie. The installation comprises material culture and documentation of this ceremony that united Fijian, Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal traditions—representing the heritages of both Wilfred and Ada.
Adorning the space is a large hanging traditional Fijian bark cloth and floor mats that symbolise important elements of the Fijian Tevutevu ceremony (meaning ‘spreading of the mats’). These visuals are accompanied by a selection of photographs that re-tell the symbolic presentations of Fijian traditions, together with cultural sharing by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community members through performance. This joyous exchange through the Fijian Tevutevu ceremony celebrates the transmission of customary practices, supported by the dynamic relationships across family, community and cultures. Also conveying current community experiences is Naomi Hobson’s (Southern Kaantju and Umpila) January First series 2020-21, and Peggy Kasabad Lane’s (Saibal Koedal Awgadthaigal) video work Tombstone Unveiling of Mrs Keru Isua 2017. Hobson’s January First series shows the practices that have emerged through bonds and trust between family, community and place. Hobson is from Coen, located on Cape York Peninsula, Far North Queensland. Working with her community, she has photographed multiple generations participating in the ritual of applying white material (clay, powder or flour) to the faces of customary relatives at New Year’s time. This act is both symbolic of renewing and celebrating relationships, while also offering time for reflection on entering a new cycle. The candid individual images portray grandparents, godparents, cousins and grandchildren taking part in this practice in their homes and in everyday life. These captured moments actively express how cultural connections manifest and are continued in the spaces where family and community meet, gather, share and connect.
< Peggy Kasabad LANE Saibal Koedal Awgadthaigal Born Thursday Island, Queensland, 1981 Tombstone unveiling of Mrs Keru Isua 2018
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Using imagery and sound, Lane’s video work recounts a Torres Strait Islander tombstone opening ceremony as part of honouring the life of the deceased and acknowledging they have reached their final resting place. Lane divides the film into two screens, revealing different actions of the ceremony in both the organisation and delivery of those events, leading to the final unveiling of the tombstone. This footage emphasises the different involvement of people - preparing food, creating ceremonial wear, decorating the ceremonial site, and performing song and dance. The widespread inclusion of community represented illuminates the importance of kinship ties binding families together across the Torres Strait Island region. Similarly, my sister Elisa Jane ‘Leecee’ Carmichael (Ngugi, Quandamooka) offers a personal reflection on experiences surrounding the passing of loved ones - family and Elders through combining Quandamooka weaving practices with video work. Her film represents healing processes and honouring the spirit of loved ones on Country. This is told by moving imagery of our sacred waters, animals,
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plants, trees and transitions of time from sunrise to sunset. Overlaying this footage are cultural stories and songs shared by Senior Quandamooka songman Buangan Joshua Walker, of the Nunakul Tribe. His spoken words and song speak to how the spiritual life, Country, land, seas and skies are all interconnected. These meanings are further instilled by the presence of a large, coiled basket woven with ugaire, reeds that grow on Country in fresh water of Minjerribah. This form represents a vessel that holds and carries memories and stories of loved ones. By weaving with living material of Country, and drawing upon generational knowledge, Leecee reminds us that the spirit of people always remains with place. Torres Strait Islander artist Grace Lillian Lee also invigorates ancestral weaving practices in contemporary approaches. Lee’s collection of sculptural dresses responds to the transformations of Torres Strait Islander ceremonial clothing through the arrival of missionary activity and Christianity. Traditional ceremonial dress—including woven skirts created from pandanus and coconut fibre—was replaced with the introduction of a long, loose-fitting, body-covering dress, often referred to as the ‘Mother Hubbard’ dress1. This style of clothing remains in the Torres Strait region today and has evolved to feature brightly coloured floral-patterned fabrics representative of the islands’ rich land and sea environments.
> Elisa Jane CARMICHAEL Ngugi/Quandamooka Born Brisbane, Queensland, 1987 Jarah (detail) 2021
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Experimenting with materials, form and symbolism, Lee’s collection of alluring ceremonial- wedding wear integrates past and present links with Torres Strait Islander expression and traditions. In the Future Floral Woven Forms series 2020, coconut leaf fibres are woven into the check weaving technique that is commonly used in the making of mats, baskets and dance armbands. This weaving method is combined with prawn weaving, taught to the artist by her mentor, Uncle Ken Thaiday. Lee shapes these techniques into items that include wearable oversized flower forms. The symbolic use of flowers in her designs relates to imagery on current island style dresses, and the decorations and adornments used in Torres Strait Islander ceremonial practices.
< Grace Lillian LEE Born Cairns, Queensland, 1988 Future Floral Woven Forms (detail) 2020
Interweaving with the themes of life cycles, is the representation of healing and renewal rituals that embed connections to Country and all-embracing relationships with lands, waters, skies and living things. Heather Wunjarra Koowootha (WikMungkan/Djabuguy/Yidinji) details holistic knowledges specific to the environment of her ancestral Country, through the specific application of natural materiality in medicinal rites. Her prints on paper draw upon her Yidinji and Wik Mungkan family teachings and memory to create a visual index of the wide variety of trees, herbs and flowers used in ritual, including for health, birth, women’s business, marriage and death ceremonies. Each drawing offers a reminder of layered interconnections existing between people, lands, waters and all living beings. For example, Cheese Fruit 2020 expresses how the cheese fruit plant is applied to the skin to treat colds and infections, particularly around the time of the wet season in the Cape York area.2 The stories and lived experiences bound to each plant are cited in Koowootha’s hand-written texts that accompany each work. The individual stories are vividly illustrated in bright colour palettes and energetic shapes that celebrate the vitality of the plants and the knowledge that continues to transcend years, seasons, and many lifetimes of experience. Similarly, the collaborative work of Simone Arnol (Gunggandji) and Bernard Singleton Jnr (Umpila, Djabugay/Yirrgay) titled Medicine Clay 2019-20, also relays traditional medicine practices. Ochre holds ceremonial and cultural significance across many Aboriginal nations and communities, as it embodies a spirited connection to Country and place. This series of digital prints highlights the power of clay in healing for health and wellbeing practices, while also honouring the teaching that Singleton Jnr’s mother imparted surrounding these rituals. The intimate portraits represent three generations—Singleton Jr, his father and his niece—engaging 18
in medicine clay knowledge through the immersive application of earth material onto the body. Each clay marking on the individual holds different meanings to different family members’ experiences with teachings and use of medicinal knowledge. The portraits show variations of white and red clay being absorbed into skin and body as a metaphoric representation of the knowledge that is transferred between generations. Focusing on the face and body, the images invoke different spiritual and physical emotions as part of the act of healing and embracing family wisdom. The cleansing and spiritual importance of clay is also depicted in the film Spear 2015 by Stephen George Page AO (Nunukul and Munaldjali). This video tells a story of a young Aboriginal man named Djali navigating his Aboriginal existence in the present day. Returning to practices surrounding life cycles, the opening sequence in this film depicts an initiation ceremony where Djali’s body is washed with water and his forehead is painted with white ochre. Smoke is then used to cleanse his body and spirit before he continues on his personal journey of finding his own strength in the world3. Featuring minimal dialogue, the
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complete narrative is told through song, dance and imagery. The focus on oral traditions and movement reiterates the intrinsic role of song and dance in ceremony, and more broadly as an important means of cultural transmission. Performance is also a significant feature in the work of Carl Fourmile (Yidinji). His installation, Wunjuu Bayal 2020 (meaning smoking ceremony in Yindinji language), acknowledges cultural practices surrounding fire, smoke, and ceremony through his assemblage of hand-carved clapstick and long flat boomerang forms. The variety of wooden instruments are placed in a circular arrangement to represent the gathering of people and community as part of smoking ceremonies. The social and performative nature of these ceremonies is activated in a sound piece that reverberates within the installation. The recording by Fourmile and his Aunty Teresa Dewar, features sounds of the environment, crackling fire, clapsticks and language songs. For many Aboriginal nations, smoking ceremonies can link with welcoming to Country, acknowledgment of Ancestors, and as part of cleansing place and people rituals. While this is a shared understanding across Country and communities, Fourmile’s representation is grounded in the specifics of his cultural heritage. The different wooden forms are shaped and inscribed with designs and markings unique to his Yidinji ancestral traditions.
> Heather Wunjarra KOOWOOTHA Wik-Mungkan/Yidinji/Djabugay Born Cairns, Queensland, 1966 Cheese Fruit - Marinda Citrifolia Bunumiey, at The South East CostLe Side to the Cape York and the GuLF ReginaL area 2019-2020
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The link between mark making, ceremony and Country is also told in the intergenerational work of the late, revered lawman, Elder and father, Arthur Koo’ekka Pambegan Jr (1936-2010), and his son Alair Pambegan (both Wik-Mungan). Pambegan Jr’s installation Bonefish Story Place 2007-08 communicates his custodianship for Walkaln-aw (Bonefish Story Place) and Kalben (Flying Fox Story Place) - two significant ancestral story places and associated narratives for the Winchanam clan, who live along the Archer River on Wik-Mungan Country4. The story of Bonefish Story Place is about two brothers who travelled from the tip of Cape York in search of a place to call home, only to meet a tragic end and become transformed into bonefish. Similarly, Flying Fox Story Place ‘tells the story of two brothers undergoing initiation rites. A major part of these rites involves not hunting certain animals. The brothers broke this rule by sneaking out of ceremony and
killing hundreds of flying foxes.’5 The two brothers admitted their wrongdoing and were punished by their Ancestors for breaking the rules. These ancestral stories impart the enduring reminder of Wik-Mungan traditional law and protocol, embedded in the great respect for the land and its people. This law was taught to Pambegan Jr by his father, who in turn handed it onto Alair. Connected with the Bonefish and Flying Fox stories is the knowledge of ceremonial visual traditions. The Bonefish Story Place installation reimagines carving techniques used in ancestral ceremonial sculpture and the Winchanam body designs to create large-scale forms. Three logs are carved and shaped from milkwood to build a standing structure that suspends varying sized bonefish. The logs and bonefish are painted in variations of ceremonial body paint designs, in iconic red, white and black colours that reference the artists’ Country - red bauxite cliffs and white sandy beaches. Alair inherits the responsibility for continuing important ancestral stories maintained by his father. In his series of paintings, ceremonial body paint designs and the symphony of red, white and black colours are united onto canvas in strong linear and geometric patterns. This father and son collaboration illustrates the importance of senior artists passing vital cultural knowledge on to their next generation. Pambegan honours his father’s legacy through his own innovative approach to maintain cultural narratives and artistic traditions.
< Carl FOURMILE Yidinji Born Muluridji, Queensland, 1979 Wunjuu Bayal 2020
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> Alair PAMBEGAN Wik-Mungkan Born Aurukun, Queensland, 1966 Bonefish Man & Dancing Spirit Man Winchanam Ceremonial Dance 2020
>> Arthur Koo’ekka PAMBEGAN Jnr Wik-Mungkan Born Aurukun, Queensland, 1936 died Aurukun, Queensland, 2010 Bonefish Story Place, 2007–08
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Intergenerational sharing is also central to the making of Dale Harding’s (Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal) work, As I Remember It (H1) 2020. Harding collaborated with his cousin Hayley Matthew (Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal) to create the four-panel painting on paper that embodies their lineages of rock art traditions at Carnarvon Gorge in Central Queensland. In this work, the variations of golden-yellow tones associate with light transformations on sandstone walls at Carnarvon Gorge. Like the natural light that endures and shifts across this special site, Harding’s recent work links to ritual through the process of extending his people’s culturally distinct practices. The stories and traditions belonging to Harding’s family and community are continued through the act of making and using new visionary forms that are grounded in tradition. Vital to this way of working and giving expression, is the embedding of collective action through the involvement of family to communicate shared stories, which in turn nurture cultural knowledge and guide new ways ahead of telling their cultural inheritances.
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The final linking theme of spiritual practices looks to thoughts and ways of reconnecting knowledge and maintaining deep bonds between people and Ancestors. For some of the artists featured in this exhibition, family and personal experiences speak of loss or the interruption in practices through prolonged colonisation and complex histories. However, their stories of loss are consolidated through journeys of regenerating ancestral memory via visual and oral language, practices and forms. The meaning of these reconnections is in turn an act of ceremonial connection. Transcendent links are also explored through the memory and meaning of materials and forms that invoke spirited relationships across time and generations. Dr Christian Thompson AO (Bidjara) employs sound to call upon his traditional language in his three-channel video work Berceuse 2017. The video intimately focusses on Thompson’s face, eyes and movement of his mouth as he sings a berceuse—a cradle song or lullaby—that combines chanting and electronic elements as an expression of his Bidjara language. This work reflects upon his language being categorised as extinct, and speaks of the histories of silenced languages, and the loss of language as a result of colonisation and assimilation polices. In the present, many First Nations people are in the process of proudly re-storing and re-activating their languages across different modes. Thompson’s poetic reciting of the words of his Ancestors, in his own form of expression, offers an empowering and healing rite. > Dale HARDING with Hayley MATTHEW Dale HARDING Bidjara/Ghungalu/Garingbal Born Moranbah, Queensland, 1982 Hayley MATTHEW Bidjara/Ghungalu/Garingbal Born Rockhampton, Queensland, 1988 As I remember it (H1) 2020
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^ Dr Christian THOMPSON AO Bidjara Born Gawler, South Australia, 1974 Berceuse 2017
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In their individual artworks, Torres Strait Islander artists Janet Fieldhouse (Kala Lagaw Ya and Meriam Mir language), Brian Robinson (Maluyligal, Wuthathi and Dayak) and Joel Sam (Sui Baidam), highlight the spiritual, ancestral and physical importance of cultural objects in ceremonial and religious rites. Fieldhouse combines the medium of clay with fibre practices to create direct and allusive expressions of her people’s stories that manifest cultural practices and relationships with land and sea. In particular, Silent Dancer (Rattle) 2020 and Comb Dance 1-3 2020, are inspired by objects associated with Torres Strait Islander song and dance. Plant seeds, such as Kalup, are commonly used to make dance rattles for creating sound and rhythm. Fieldhouse reinterprets the use of these seeds through a cluster of woven vessels that swing low and are attached to a central long strand of fibre that connects to a sturdy circular clay handle. The large-scale size accentuates the energy and spirit these objects create in dance movement. Similarly, Comb Dance
1–3 expands on adornments that are worn and are associated with dance traditions. Fastened to the ceramic comb form is a small detail of check weaving technique (also discussed in Grace Lillian Lee’s work). In making these works, Fieldhouse reflects ‘she has never physically performed Torres Strait songs and dance’.6 These works are a way of connecting with performative practices through materiality, while also acknowledging their enduring role in Torres Strait Islander identity. Fieldhouse’s sculptural pieces draw largely from her ongoing research into the material culture of Torres Strait Islander people through museum collections, as well as the oral histories that have been handed down to her. Similarly, Robinson’s Arcãnus Curio 2020 series engages with historical ritual objects held in museum collections. The material culture of First Nations People, which are stored in collections around the world, were often amassed forcibly and under problematic circumstances from their communities of origin. These items are woven with memory, thousands of years old. They are carved and shaped with experiences of time and painted and inscribed with lineage to Country and place. Through First Nations artistic practices, ancestral forms are visually repatriated, while also maintaining traditions, knowledge and stories inherent in these materials, for the next generation.
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^ Brian ROBINSON Maluyligal/Wuthathi/Dayak Born Thursday Island, Queensland, 1973 Wene-wenel gaugau mawa (Torres Strait) 2018
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^ Joel SAM SUI BAIDAM Born Thursday Island, Queensland, 1977 Umau Dhoeri Mawa 2020
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Robinson’s hand-drawn images of powerful cultural objects— including dance masks, charms and domestic objects—provide a rich acknowledgement of spiritual and ancestral qualities that extend beyond the physical form. This series continues Robinson’s investigation into shared ideas and exchange across cultures, by focussing on intersections between traditional land custodians of the Pacific Islands through their ritual objects. In realistic depictions, Robinson portrays cultural objects that embody sacred or symbolic meanings that are linked closely to the spiritual world. The style of drawing applied is similar to a blueprint or design drawing, where attention is directed to the threedimensional form and the technical making of each object. This intimate examination offers an understanding of the many layers of meanings and stories attached to each form, and what they may invoke or offer a connection to. Joel Sam’s sculptural wall installation titled Kulba Igilinga (Old Culture) 2020, also represents powerful cultural objects through an array of ceremonial Dhoeri (Dhari, Dhibal) headdresses with masks. Exclusive to the Torres Strait, headdresses are customarily made and worn by males during ceremony to evoke the spiritual and natural worlds 31
and are now commonly used in dance performances.7 Sam’s collection is inspired by ceremonial contexts and the motifs and styles of the Saibai Island region. The Dhoeris are made from an abundance of feathers and adorned with shells, seeds and fibres in four different colours with significant meaning. The green-coloured feather Dhoeri is worn for the protection of the garden against evil spells; the brown is used for a plentiful harvest; the blue calls upon a good hunt and weather conditions; and the black symbolises death in ritual processes. The performative nature of these headdresses is expanded upon through Sam’s inclusion of the masks, charms and functional materials. His blue Dhoeri is accompanied by a small dugout canoe, harpoon (warup) and dugong charm that link to sea hunting activities. Through this collection of animated headdresses, the artist shares how culture beliefs and responsibilities to land and sea custodianship are sung, danced and performed into being. In her poem The Past, distinguished poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal of Minjerribah writes, ‘Let no one say the past is dead. The past is all about us and within.’ In Ritual: The past in the present, the meaning of these words reverberate across the collection of works through the powerful presence of Country, place, community, kin, language, song, dance – all of which link to ancestral ties. In this grounded sharing of stories and cultural beliefs, we can see, hear and experience how rituals continue to transcend time, generation and knowledge. This movement between spiritual, physical and temporal also echoes in processes and production of each artwork, where artists transform their inherent practices and personal or collective stories into their own visionary approaches. It is all of these acts of engaging, collaborating, sharing and performing that carry and continue knowledge forward for our many generations to come.
end notes 1. Louise Hamby and Valarie Kirk, ‘Seafarer People and Their Textiles from Erub Arts, Torres
Strait, Australia,’ Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings 989 (2016):
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1971&context=tsaconf. 2. Heather Koowootha, Cheese Fruit - Marinda Citrifolia Bunumiey, at The South East CostLe
Side to the Cape York and the GuLF ReginaL area, 2019-2020, watercolour and pen on paper, 76 x 56 cm
3. Australian Teachers of Media, Spear Study Guide, Metro magazine: St Kilda, Victoria, n.d.
https://issuu.com/bangarra/docs/spear_study_guide_755ea3f7966591.
4. Bruce Johnson McLean, ‘Alair Pambegan,’ in The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary
Art (Brisbane: Queensland Art Gallery, 2018), pp. 127.
5. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, ‘Arthur Koo’ekka Pambegan Jr Flying Fox
Story Place 2002–2003,’ 26 August 2020,
https://learning.qagoma.qld.gov.au/artworks/flying-fox-story-place/. 6. Janet Fieldhouse, conversation with the author, August 2020. 7. Kelli Cole and Teho Ropeyarn, ‘Ken Thaiday Senior,’ in Defying Empire: 3rd National
Indigenous Art Triennial, ed. Tina Baum (Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2017), pp. 118.
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a prayer to be haunted Micheal Do anointing. burning. lighting. As the COVID-19 pandemic tightened its grip globally, communities across the world quarantined in self isolation. For several months in Australia, a country known for its outdoor and active lifestyle, our streets were sterile and empty. In Sydney where I am writing this - like other parts of Australia - people love to engage with each other, touch, talk and debate in conversation. However, during lockdown, this way of life was replaced by a silence that weighed heavily on the landscape. Casting our minds back, only the occasional passer-by would march briskly through the street; the smell of hand sanitiser became an ubiquitous part of the city’s olfactory landscape; facemasks littered the streets, cast away in stormwater drains and in public spaces. Gone were gestures, like a brief brush on the hand, to affirm connection. That was life in lockdown, an experience which remains the ghostly reality for many parts of the world, even now.
delicate humanism at work As some have identified, this reality is akin to Austrian physicist’s Erwin Schrödinger’s cat, a thought experiment whereby a cat, contained in a box is both living and dead until it can be proved otherwise. Communities in Australia were treated to both have and not have COVID-19. We expected normality to resume, but did not know when, not all at once and even now, we won’t know whether the world we knew once before will be the same. During this confusing kaleidoscope, humanity has responded - both by instinct and design - to refashion and reassert rituals in the most striking ways, using activities to formalise and mark time. The citizens of Sardinia, Italy, staged balcony concerts to maintain morale; New York collectively applauded front-line workers; individuals at home across the globe were changing clothes to divide their day into work, leisure and family time, while everyone migrated their lives into the online world. Old rituals were paused, while new rituals took their place.
< Jumaadi Born Sidoarjo, Indonesia, 1973 Sunan Kalijaga and Dewi Anjani (detail) 2020
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solidarity among the powerless
Twentieth century British anthropologist Victor Turner, who specialises in rituals, symbols and passages of time and journeys, defines rituals as, ‘a stereotyped sequence of activities involving gestures, words and objects, performed in a sequestered place.’1 Rituals mark the passage of time, define communities, highlight a changed state, express our sense of identity and reaffirm shared memories. They often do all of this at once. However, as rituals tend to be habitual and inherited, we tend not to think about their origins, politics and histories. Therein lies their power, their ubiquity and their sanctity. As we now attempt to give meaning to this time, ritual acts have their greatest power.
purifying passing sacrificing
Ruminating on the power of rituals, the exhibition Ritual: The past in the present, Indigenous North Australia and Asia Pacific Art emerges. Drawing together artists with research areas rooted in the geographies of the Asia-Pacific region, the exhibition reflects on ritual narratives and illuminates how cultural markers and rites of passage frame societies. Reawakening and strengthening our resolve as feeling creatures amid the ongoing traumas of the pandemic, the exhibition artists delve deep into their personal archives, utilising a range of methodologies and mediums to exquisitely evoke intricate case studies.
tact and empathy
Guided by research and reflection, these artists probe the depths of ritual practices to unpack the politics, assumptions and prejudices embedded within ritual practices, delivering original interpretations. By bringing humanity’s reserve to the fore, the artists construct a decentred history of ritual and artistic traditions; they are attentive to the way in which such events have formerly been narrated or indeed ignored in contemporary art discourse.
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^ Abdul ABDULLAH Born Perth, Western Australia, 1986 The wedding (Conspiracy to commit) (detail) 2015
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^ Angela TIATIA Born Auckland, New Zealand, 1973 Group Portrait 2012
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one foot in front of the other
The exhibition explores how artists have used narratives to represent culture and ritual experience, while reconsidering the role of narratives and rituals themselves in historical representation. Abdul Abdullah (b. 1986, Perth, Australia) reframes marriage to explore the misrecognition, racists deindividuation and prejudice that confronts coloured bodies in Anglo-Western societies. In Mutual Assurances 2017, the artist remade ubiquitous wedding photographic portraits using a Malay couple dressed in ornate balaclavas. By masking the identity of these Muslim newlyweds behind this signifier of criminality, the artist points to societal projections onto coloured bodies in Anglo-Western societies - outsider, criminal and deviant.
to doubt is to make
Elsewhere in the exhibition, artists address history though the contingencies of their biography, using their own narratives in their work. For Pacific Island communities, the three-thousand-year-old cultural practice of tatau (tattoo) produces personal identity by publicly proclaiming the psychological and societal place of the bearer. Often practised when the bearer is transitioning into adulthood, according to scholar Albert Wendt, the tatau clothes the bearer for life, indicating their adulthood, service to one’s community and that the bearer has ‘triumphed over physical pain and is ready for the demands of life and its demanding activities such as language and oratory.’2
the serene, slow, silent, spectacle
Angela Tiatia (b. 1973, Auckland, New Zealand) calls to mind the political and symbolic weight of this practice in her video Group Portrait 2012. Lasting one minute and thirty-four seconds, the work documents the final moments of a five-hour long tatau process where she receives the malu tatau design that covers a woman’s thighs. By documenting this ceremony, Tiatia gives narrative form to her own personal history - offering audiences an opportunity to watch, as part voyeur and part interloper, this otherwise private ceremonial act.
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remarkable energies
However, this access is limited. Tiatia provides us with no means to unpack the symbolism coded within the tattoos, nor have we been given access to the process leading up to these final moments. This archive footage resists an ethnographic dimension of archival footage that has historically repressed and deindividualised Pacific Islander communities. Tiatia recognises that photography and video have been used to provide misguided representations of history, reflecting Tiatia’s interest in acknowledging the fallibility of the archive and the medium’s role in perpetuating (and also resisting) colonial structures.
wearing untethering blurring
The long-term impact of the colonial project is reflected in the work of Greg Semu (b.1971, Auckland, New Zealand). Originally made as a calendar and for display at Casula Powerhouse Art Centre’s Body Pacifica arts festival, Semu’s Body on the Line 2010 photographs depict players from Australia’s National Rugby League adorned with traditional ceremonial costume and adornments from the Pacific Islands. Each player is a bearer of tattoos. However, when explaining the work, the artist notes that sitters do not have the traditional pe’a tatau practice that adorns men in the Pacific Islands. Instead, the NRL players’ tattoos are hybrids of Samoan tatau that incorporate Japanese motifs, including the adornment of the chest and arm sleeve.
history of misunderstandings
These hybrid tattoos function as a metaphor for the systematic knowledge and cultural loss from Western occupation and intervention of the Pacific Islands. During this colonisation, many forms of Pacific Island cultural life were erased and replaced with Western Judaeo-Christian beliefs and principles. These football players, each part of the Pacific Island diaspora who have migrated to Australia and New Zealand, represent a desire to partake in this important cultural practice that proclaims one’s own bodily, spiritual and societal history.
out of sync
However, these individuals are unable to access the practice of pe’a tatau due to structural, cultural, economic barriers. Their reality reflects a new chapter of tattoos and the Pacific Island body - pointing to the effects of European cartographies, taxonomies and histories and their ruinous effects on Pacific Island knowledge production and retention. In this way, Semu invites viewers to think about the past; to make connections between events, characters and objects; to join together in memory and to reconsider the ways in which the past is represented in the wider culture. > Greg SEMU Born Auckland, New Zealand, 1971 Roy Asotasi (front) 2010
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^ Trina LEALAVAA Born Auckland, New Zealand, 1994 Ifoga 2017
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nothing more than an interlude
This impulse is also explored in Trina Lealavaa’s (b. 1994, Auckland, New Zealand) Ifoga 2017. The two minute and thirty-two second video takes its name from the Samoan exchange, ifoga, a public act of apology. A group will typically submit to selfhumiliation and offer fine mats or ‘ie toga and speeches of contrition to appease the offended group.3 Lealavaa’s video depicts a young woman who has lost her brother to suicide, cycling through charged scenes of restrained mise en scène that depict her grief and torment. The artist likens the aftermath of suicide to ifoga - underscoring how communal processes of contrition, acceptance and solidarity can prevent further escalations of social, economic, cultural and physical conflicts. The video, while not based on personal experience, speaks to the suicide rate in New Zealand, where Pacific Island youth are more vulnerable than European counterparts, with men the highest at-risk category.4
remoulding, disappearing
The photographic image is dynamic, contextual and contingent. Implicit within the medium is the potential to document subjects, details and facets that represent social relationships. Phuong Ngo’s (b.1983, Adelaide, Australia) practice is mired in this politic. His practice is steeped in the systematic preservation and archiving of important cultural and historical objects - both in a material and artistic sense - that traces and explores his Vietnamese heritage. In Dead Objects 2019 Ngo has photographed ancestral shrine objects such as candlesticks, vases and incense burners collected from Ngo’s ancestral homes in Soc Trang, South Vietnam and the Adelaide home where his family settled in 1981 following the Vietnam War (1955 -1975).
pure potential
Ritual in this project serves as both subject matter and a means used to engage with ideas and concepts. By blurring each image, Ngo alludes to the high-speed press photography that documented the Vietnam War, destabilising the photorealism and ethnographic impulses of photography. Ngo’s work investigates the status of the image; it doesn’t so much address the specific historical situation of the war and its mediation by images. Instead, Ngo tackles the moral issue of what images can or cannot make visible. His works propose an investigation that takes, as both its focus and it’s starting point, images understood as things, that is, images in their materiality, interfering in real life, influencing it, even transforming it.
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celebrating and marking
By placing his objects within the frame of the photograph, he offers these objects a sense of typology and chronology-drawing attention to each detail and the social relationships within each image. By selecting these objects, Ngo draws upon the lexicons of palettes of compositional elements that are already saturated with meaning and suffused with the aesthetics of ritual objects. These objects are a crystallisation of labour, use-value, sacredness, meaning and desire. In this way, Ngo presents a case for critical engagement of ritual processes through the juxtaposition and tension of these objects, revealing the complexities of the popular and the folk alongside the contemporary.
incubation and maturation
Jumaadi (b. 1973, Sidoarjo, Indonesia) delves into the folk tales and superstitions of the Indonesia island, Java. Forming a significant part of Javanese cultural life, these superstitions and rituals have traditions in Indonesian art that are many centuries long. In Sunan Kalijaga and Dewi Anjani 2020, Jumaadi portrays the meditative cleansing practice of kungkum that takes place on the first day of the Javanese calendar year. Jumaadi has used a thin watercolour to create expansive, two-dimensional scenes that warp perspective, speaking to the tradition of Javanese Hindu scroll paintings that depict epic narratives. The left panel depicts Sunan Kalijaga, one of the nine saints who taught and propagated Islam in Java. It was believed that he often sat by a river or creek to perform his meditation rituals. On the right panel, the mother of Lord Hanuman, Dewi Anjani, one of the heroes of the Indian epic Ramayana, is depicted. She is partaking in the kungkum ritual by a river that is decorated with various mountains, trees and volcanoes that reflect Indonesia’s variable geography. This painted scroll extends Jumaadi’s Wayang beber puppeteering practice - one of the oldest forms of Indonesian theatre that typically exists in villages and has its origins in poetry and storytelling.
expressing. observing
When discussing the work, Jumaadi emphasises his interest in collective and personal narratives that form artistic production, placing a positive value on the variations, flaws and irregularities in human behaviour. By giving life to these mythical characters, he collapses the future, present and past. A compression of tenses, these works simultaneously recall the past while looking forward reiterating the power of devotional forms of art making and rituals, despite the societal changes taking place in Indonesia today.
> Phuong NGO Born Adelaide, South Australia, 1983 Dead Objects (detail) 2019-20
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constructed from the unsaid
Korean filmmaker and auteur Park Chan-Kyong’s (b. 1985, Seoul, Korea) feature length documentary, Manshin: Ten thousand spirits 2013 follows Korea’s most famed naramansin or shaman, Kim Keum-Wha. Blending together re-enacted scenes, documentary footage and fictionalised scenes, Park explores the range of private and public liturgical chants, instrumental music and ritual-staging that characterise Korean shaman rituals, while contextualising the social, political and cultural frameworks that govern these ancient rituals in urbanised, contemporary Korea.
infinite surprises
One of these tensions includes how the Korean government, through cultural initiatives and festivals, uses this practice to communicate nationalistic notions of Korean identity. According to scholar Boudewijn Walraven, Korean rituals require constant interaction between the performers of the ritual and the manshin in a dynamic process where meaning is constantly transmitted, affecting the participants.5 However in Kim’s public performances, there are instances where there is an audience but no actual single participant to forge this relationship, thereby highlighting the tensions of these rituals and their role in contemporary society.
everything can be modified
Charwei Tsai’s (b. 1980, Taipei, Taiwan) performance highlights the impermanence of culture and human practices. Made during a residency in Little Bay, New South Wales, Sea Mantra 1980 depicts the artist writing the ancient Indian text the Heart Sutra. Tsai has had a long history of working with the Heart Sutra, having memorised the text during her childhood in Taiwan. The text is a set of Hindu teachings and aphorisms, including the lesson that everything that surrounds us is a composite of several things that will disintegrate with time. Reflecting on this, Tsai staged the work in the shallows of Little Bay as the waves gently crash around her, dispersing into nothingness. Over seventeen minutes, Tsai repeatedly rewrites the text as a way to come to terms with its content, internalising it as part of her own ritual practice.
< Charwei TSAI Born Taipei, Taiwan, 1980 Sea Mantra (detail) 2009
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lifting and memorising
Art making as a form of ritual is evident in the work of Koji Ryui (b. 1976, Kyoto, Japan). His installation of found objects, TOT 2020, juxtaposes carefully arranged found glass vessels to create space impregnated with a sense of the unknown. For Ryui, the unknown is an occasion for possibilities; it is a provocation that propels us on a journey, a route of unknowing in which we experience many of the ways that we do not know something.
sharing and pausing
TOT is underpinned by Ryui’s interest in Shinto religion, which emphasises the importance of sacred, liminal spaces to channel divine energy and Shinto gods, kami, through a precise set of parameters. Ryui uses animist principles to engage with these objects, affording them with compassion and affection to build their andromorphic presence. It is this presence and conscious configuration of objects that manifests a story. TOT operates as a series of fictions and narrations. As audiences, we have a choice among these histories and fictions, completing the narrative with our subjectivities. It is important to note that Ryui avoids the spectacular and immersive displays that encourage viewers to forget their location. These works prompt viewers to sense their present-tense and feel their phenomenological encounter of the work.
everything is a question
The work does not ask us to simply join together in a romantically sociable way, but instead to consider objecthood, life force and temporary, open-ended experiences. In a poetic gesture, the artist has used the same materials - glass and sand - albeit in two different states. Through this, the artist introduces the concept of time and decay within the life cycle of materials and rituals - important considerations within Ryui’s practice.
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> Koji RYUI Born Kyoto, Japan , 1976 TOT (detail) 2020
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^ Taloi HAVINI Born Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, 1981 Michael TOISUTA Born Sydney, New South Wales, 1975 Dengung Hyena (Hyena Resounding) 2020
sequencing and selecting. persuading
Taloi Havini and Michael Toisuta have collaborated to create Dengung Hyena (Hyena Resounding) 2020. Unable to travel to their respective communities because of the COVID-19 pandemic (Taloi to the Autonomous Region of Bougainville of Papua New Guinea and Michael to the Republic of Indonesia), both artists developed this collaboration remotely, drawing upon their respective archives of source material. By combining Taloi’s footage of the Hyena ritual in Bougainville - a ritual whereby Bougainvilleans witness and celebrate the new moon ushering in coral spawning - and Toisuta’s instrumentation of Indonesian gamelan instruments, the artists highlight the connectivity and communality of ritual practices throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
obsessive unbending conversations
The work suggests that profound historical understanding (if not objective knowledge) can be achieved through various kinds of sharing of cultural material. For the artists, this was a true collaboration with the work’s imagery, soundtrack and spatial experience informing each other. By fragmenting, deconstructing and reconstructing their recorded material, the artists fracture the narrative fluidity of their archival material, resisting the anthropological tendencies of documentary footage. Instead, they offer a complex meditation of co-existence, asking who, when, where and how these principles have operated. In this way, the artists have chosen to define history not as a sequence of events acted out by individual agents, but as the simultaneity of separate but contingent social frameworks.
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we have long forgotten
In this uncertain time, the process of self-isolation provided us with a moment to ponder how cultural markers and rites frame our lives. Rituals build our shared identities and offer us psychological comfort in this confusing world. Like history and rituals themselves, Ritual: The past in the present is a tangle of allusions and realities, hearsay and facts. By offering expansive examples of ritual practices and contemporary art making, the exhibition beats with a rhetorical urgency, an eloquence and a beauty that impels us to view the past differently and grasp what these ideas might portend.
anchors matter
As humankind is humbled by the pandemic that unfolds, grows and spreads, causing major disruption to daily life, art and our experiences of it are more important than ever before. Contemporary art places us in a position to reimagine relations and futures that are altogether different from the present - to conceive a future not just as a series of mounting disasters, but as a time for understanding between the different people residing in our communities. But how it achieves this is mysterious. Its effects cannot be anticipated. In this way, contemporary art, as described by Indian scholar Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, is like a prayer to be haunted. A prayer to be haunted by art. A prayer that these works will stay with us; that they will follow us and never relent. Art is a prayer for now. the art of the ellipses...
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end notes 1. Victor, T. 1969. A Ritual Process: Structure and Anti Structure. 3rd ed. Somerset, United States:
Taylor & Francis Inc
2. Ellis, J. 2006. ‘Tatau’ and ‘Malu’: Vital Signs in Contemporary Samoan Literature.’ PMLA 121, no.3: 687 - 701. 3. Macpherson, C. 2006. ‘The Ifoga: The exchange value of social honour in Samoa.’ The Journal
of Polynesian Society 114, no. 2: 109 - 133. 4. Martin, H. 2017. “Study: Pacific youth more at risk of suicide than any other group.” Stuff NZ, April 28, 2017. Accessed: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/91938328/study-pacific-youth-more-at-risk-of-
suicide-than-any-other-group 5. Walraven, B. 2017. ‘National Pantheon, Regional Deities, Personal Spirits? Mushindo, Sŏngsu, and the Nature of Korean Shamanism.’ Asian Ethnology 68, no.1: 55–80
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ritual the past in the present
list of works
Indigenous North Australian and Asia Pacific Art
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists
Simone ARNOL Gunggandji Born Cairns, Queensland Bernard SINGLETON Jnr Umpila/Djabugay/Yirrgay Born Cairns, Queensland Medicine clay 2019-2020 reproduced cover
digital print 35.5 x 49 cm (Image); 41.5 x 55 cm (sheet) (16 prints) Courtesy of the artists Elisa Jane CARMICHAEL Ngugi/Quandamooka Born Brisbane, Queensland, 1987 Jarah 2021 weaving reproduced p. 16
single channel video, sound, 5:16mins, ungaire and basket 5 x 70 cm diameter (weaving) Courtesy of the artist and Onespace Gallery, Brisbane Photo: Louis Lim
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Janet FIELDHOUSE Kala Lagaw Ya/Meriam Mir Born Cairns, Queensland, 1971 Body Scarification 2020 Buff Raku Trachyte, clay, feathers, raffia, wood 36 x 25 x 10 cm Breastplate Hybrid 2020 Buff Raku Trachyte, Cool Ice porcelain, clay 8 x12.5 x 6 cm 10 x 11 x 7 cm Breastplate Pendant 1 & 2 2020 clay, Cool Ice porcelain, hemp string, wood 8 x12.5 x 6 cm 10 x 11 x 7 cm Charms 2020 Buff Raku Trachyte, raffia 12 x 20 x 12 cm 10 x 15 x 11 cm 11 x 13 x 11 cm Comb Dance 2020 clay, raffia, feathers, wire 2 x 26 x 12 cm 2 x 25 x 12 cm 2 x 24 x12 cm 2 x 22 x 12 cm Crab Claw (Scarification) 2020 Buff Raku Trachyte, raffia, feathers 32.5 x 55 x 55 cm Dogai (Evil Spirit) 1 & 2 2020 Cool Ice porcelain, feathers, hemp string 33 x 40 x 33 cm 34 x 35 x 35 cm
Doll 2020 raffia 12 x 4 x 4 cm 13 x 6 x 6 cm 14 x 8 x 8 cm 10 x 6 x 6 cm 10 x 4 x 4 cm 13 x 6 x 6 cm Flying Brid (Scarification) 2020 clay, Cool Ice porcelain, wood, wire 22 x 18 x 18 cm Going Fishing 1 & 2 2020 Buff Raku Trachyte, clay 8 x 28 x 28 cm (each) Hybrid Sailing Canoe Series 2 2020 Buff Raku Trachyte, white feathers, bamboo, raffia 89 x 90 x 58 cm Leg Markings (Scarification) 2020 clay, raffia 41 x 10 x 10 cm 32 x 10 x 10 cm Memory Marks (Scarification) 2020 clay, feathers, jute string 58 x 30 x 30 cm 58 x 25 x 25 cm Silent Dancer (Raddle) 2020 clay, jute rope, raffia 157 x 80 x 80 cm Simplify (Body Scarification) 2020 Buff Raku Trachyte, clay, Cool Ice porcelain 31 x 19 x 18 cm
Trade 2020 Buff Raku Trachyte, Cool Ice porcelain, clay, jute rope 35 x 18 x 20 cm Water Bowl 4, 5 & 6 2020 Buff Raku Trachyte, Cool Ice porcelain, clay, raffia, wire 13 x 29 x 41 cm 21 x 16 x 36 cm 21 x 24 x 24 cm Water Charm 2020 Buff Raku Trachyte, raffia 7 x 19 x 8 cm 7 x 16 x 10 cm 7 x 18 x 9 cm Warriors Arm Band 2020
reproduced p. 4
Buff Raku Trachyte, bamboo, feathers, raffia 136 x 40 x 40 cm (each) Courtesy of the artist and Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne Photo: Michael Marzik Carl FOURMILE Yidinji Born Muluridji, Queensland, 1979 Wunjuu Bayal 2020 reproduced p. 21
Eucalyptus wood, recycled timber, sound recording, 9:32 mins 200 x 200 cm (overall installation) Courtesy of the artist and Aunty Teresa Dewar Photo: Michael Marzik
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Dale HARDING with Hayley MATTHEW Dale HARDING Bidjara/Ghungalu/Garingbal Born Moranbah, Queensland, 1982 Hayley MATTHEW Bidjara/Ghungalu/Garingbal Born Rockhampton, Queensland, 1988 As I remember it (H1) 2020 reproduced p. 26
dry pigment, gum arabic, Chinese ink on paper 200 x 600 cm (overall) Courtesy of the artists and Milani Gallery, Brisbane Naomi HOBSON Southern Kaantju/Umpila Born Coen, Cape York, Queensland, 1979 The God Brother The God Brothers The God Child The God Daughter The God Father The God Mother The God Parents reproduced p. 5/6
The God Son The Grandfather The Grandmother and The God Son The Great Grandmother The Promised One from the January First series 2020-2021 digital print 37 x 56 cm (image size); 45 x 64 cm (sheet) Courtesy of the artist and ReDot Fine Art Gallery, Singapore
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Heather Wunjarra KOOWOOTHA Wik-Mungkan/Yidinji/Djabugay Born Cairns, Queensland, 1966 Blue ovual shape’d fruite Medications Cheese Fruit - Marinda Citrifolia Bunumiey, at The South East CostLe Side to the Cape York and the GuLF ReginaL area reproduced p. 20
Cleancing S,T,D Cuire’ing bush Remie’erdy’s Creeping Loyour Caine, Mediecine Eatable CaBBage like white young leaves, And nut Fruit Bush Dampers Nature’s Goose Berrys, Fruit trees PicKings Tee Tree oiL Medcienes The MaiLe Orchads Tradional Ceramonie’aL HeaL’ing Plant’s Leafs For Clean’sing WATER LiLLY Cabbage BuLB and it’s young stork EdgE’s White WilD TeeTh - gum and Mouth NaturaL Mediecnce WilD Bush Apple’s, The Purpose is Prepering For Marriage, And also Known For the Leaves For Law 2019-2020 watercolour and pen on paper 76 x 56 cm (each) Courtesy of the artist Photo: Michael Marzik Peggy Kasabad LANE Saibal Koedal Awgadthaigal Born Thursday Island, Queensland, 1981 Tombstone unveiling of Mrs Keru Isua 2018 reproduced p. 13
single channel video, sound, 7:44 mins Courtesy of the artist
Grace Lillian LEE Born Cairns, Queensland, 1988 Future Floral Woven Forms 2020 reproduced p. 17
canvas, cotton webbing, cane, feathers, coconut palm frond variable Courtesy of the artist and studio assistant Monique Burkhead Photo: Julian Chiarotto Stephen George PAGE AO Nunukul/Munaldjali Born Brisbane, Queensland, 1965 Spear 2015 reproduced p. 9/10
single channel video, sound, 80:00 mins Courtesy of the artist and Arena Media, Melbourne
Alair PAMBEGAN Wik-Mungkan Born Aurukun, Queensland, 1966 Winchanam Clan Body Design 2020 Bonefish Man & Dancing Spirit Man - Winchanam Ceremonial Dance 2020 reproduced p. 4
ochre and acrylic binders on linen 152 x 102 cm (each) Courtesy of the artist and Wik & Kugu Arts Centre, Aurukun
Arthur Koo’ekka PAMBEGAN Jnr Wik-Mungkan Born Aurukun, Queensland, 1936 Died Aurukun, Queensland, 2010 Bonefish Story Place 2007–2008
reproduced p. 5
ochres and charcoal with acrylic binder on milkwood, natural fibre rope 188 × 190 × 35 cm Collection: Michael Rayner AM, Brisbane Photo: Andrew Baker Art Dealer, Brisbane Brian ROBINSON Maluyligal/Wuthathi/Dayak Born Thursday Island, Queensland, 1973 Hook of life (Tonga) 2019 Influence over the seas (Cook Islands) 2020 Ornaments of chiefdom (Solomon Islands) 2020 Pounding the produce (Upper Sepik, Papua New Guinea) 2020 The charm of the biro-biro (Torres Strait) 2020 The power of the effigy (Torres Strait) 2020 The presence of past kin (Papua New Guinean Gulf) 2020 The ritual of harvest season (Torres Strait) 2020 The warrior’s keepsake (Marquesas Islands) 2020 Warriors, sorcerers and spirits (Astrolabe Bay) 2020 Weapons of warfare (Hawaii) 2019 Wene-wenel gaugau mawa (Torres Strait) 2018 reproduced p. 29
from the Arcãnus curio series coloured pencil on paper 56 x 75 cm (each) Courtesy of the artist Photo: Michael Marzik
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Joel SAM Sui Baidam Born Thursday Island, Queensland, 1977 Malu Dhoeri Mawa artificial, emu and cassowary feather, starfish thorne, foam, acrylic paint, glass, cowrie shell, dowel, seashell, twine, cane, dugong bone, Matchbox Bean nuts seed pods, mother of pearl and raffia 91 x 108 x 15 cm Darbaw Dhoeri Mawa artificial, emu and cassowary feather, foam, acrylic paint, glass, dowel, seashell, twine, cane, dugong bone, Matchbox Bean nuts seed pods, mother of pearl and raffia 95 x 68 x 11 cm Aybodh Dhoeri Mawa artificial and emu feather, banana leaf, foam, acrylic paint, glass, dowel, seashell, twine, cane, Matchbox Bean nuts seed pods, vinyl, mother of pearl and raffia 92 x 89 x 15 cm Umau Dhoeri Mawa reproduced p. 30
artificial, emu and cassowary feather, boar tusk, foam, acrylic paint, glass, cowrie shell, dowel, seashell, twine, cane, dugong bone, Matchbox Bean nuts seed pods, shell, mother of pearl and raffia 73 x 85 x 21 cm from the Kulba Igilinga (Old Culture) series 2020 Courtesy of the artist Photo: Michael Marzik
Dr Christian THOMPSON AO Bidjara
Born Gawler, South Australia, 1978 Berceuse 2017 reproduced p. 27
three channel video, sound, 5:35 mins Courtesy of the artist and Michael Reid Gallery, Sydney 57
Asia-Pacific artists
Abdul ABDULLAH Born Perth, Western Australia, 1986 Bride II (Subterfuge) Groom II (Stratagem) The wedding (Conspiracy to commit) reproduced p. 36
from the Coming to terms series 2015 digital print 107 x 187.5 cm (framed) Mutual Assurances from the Wedding series 2017 digital print 100 x 232 cm (image); 107 x 237 cm (framed) Courtesy the artist and Yavuz Gallery, Sydney Jumaadi Born Sidoarjo, Indonesia, 1973 Sunan Kalijaga and Dewi Anjani 2020 reproduced p. 33
natural and synthetic pigment on Balinese treated cotton 300 x 350 cm (each) Courtesy of the artist Photo: Tim Connolly
Taloi HAVINI Born Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, 1981 Michael TOISUTA Born Sydney, New South Wales, 1975 Dengung Hyena (Hyena Resounding) 2020 reproduced p. 50
HD video, sound, 4:27 mins Courtesy of the artists Trina LEALAVAA Born Auckland, New Zealand, 1994 Ifoga 2017 reproduced p. 41
single channel video, sound, 2:32 mins Courtesy of the artist Phuong NGO Born 1983, Adelaide, South Australia Dead Objects 2019-2020 reproduced p. 43
digital print 100 x 70 cm (image) 30 x 30 cm (image) Courtesy of the artist Chan-Kyong PARK Born Seoul, Korea, 1965 Manshin: Ten thousand spirits 2013 reproduced p. 1
HD film, sound, 104:00 mins Courtesy of the artist and Kukje Gallery, Seoul
Koji RYUI Born Kyoto, Japan, 1976 TOT 2020
reproduced p. 48
found objects, mixed media variable Courtesy of the artist and Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney Photo: Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney Greg SEMU Born Auckland, New Zealand, 1971 Frank Puletua Fuifu Moimoi Roy Asotasi (front) reproduced p. 40
Roy Asotasi (back) Body on the Line series 2010 digital print 120 x 80 cm (image) Courtesy of the artist and The Greg SEMU Foundation Angela TIATIA Born Auckland, New Zealand, 1973 Group Portrait 2012 reproduced p. 37
Dual-channel HD video, sound,1:34 mins Courtesy of the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney Charwei TSAI Born Taiwan, 1980 Sea Mantra 2009 reproduced p. 45
single channel video, sound, 17:18 mins Courtesy of the artist
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Fijian Tevutevu Ceremony of Wilfred and Ada Bowie
Adi Vuya TALEMAIKADAVU Born Lautoka, Fiji Tabuadrau RATABUA Born Lautoka, Fiji Masi Bola Ni Cakaudrove 2018 fibre, sea shells, vegetable dye, fibre rope 183 x 200 cm Collection of Wilfred and Ada Bowie UNKNOWN Oneata Island, Lau Province, Fiji Masi 2018 Mulberry tree fibre, acrylic paint, vegetable dye 381 x 456 cm Collection of Wilfred and Ada Bowie Courtesy of Oneata Island community, Lau province, Fiji UNKNOWN Lomaloma Village, Vanua Balavu, Lau Province, Fiji Delana 2018 Pandanus leaves, wool, dye 141 x 267 cm Collection of Wilfred and Ada Bowie Courtesy of Lomaloma Village community, Vanua Balavu, Lau Province, Fiji
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UNKNOWN Lomaloma Village, Vanua Balavu, Lau Province, Fiji Vakabati 2018 Pandanus leaves, wool 156 x 230 cm Collection of Wilfred and Ada Bowie Courtesy of Lomaloma Village community, Vanua Balavu, Lau Province, Fiji UNKNOWN Moce island, Lau Province, Fiji Vakamalumu 2018 Mulberry tree fibre, vegetable dye 177 x 255 cm Collection of Wilfred and Ada Bowie Courtesy of Moce Island community, Lau Province, Fiji UNKNOWN Lomaloma Village, Vanua Balavu, Lau Province, Fiji Vakabati 2018 Pandanus leaves, wool, dye 195 x 310 cm Collection of Wilfred and Ada Bowie Courtesy of Vatulele Island community, Nadroga, Fiji UNKNOWN Vatulele Island, Nadroga, Fiji Gatu 2018 Mulberry tree fibre, vegetable dye 197 x 340 cm Collection of Wilfred and Ada Bowie Courtesy of Vatulele Island community, Nadroga, Fiji
UNKNOWN Lomaloma Village, Vanua Balavu, Lau Province, Fiji Vakabati 2018 Pandanus leaves, wool, dye 236 x 310 cm Collection of Wilfred and Ada Bowie Courtesy of Lomaloma Village community, Vanua Balavu, Lau Province, Fiji UNKNOWN Moce Island, Lau Province, Fiji Taunamu Vakaviti 2018 Mulberry tree fibre, vegetable dye 367 x 480 cm Collection of Wilfred and Ada Bowie Courtesy of Lomaloma Village community, Vanua Balavu, Lau Province, Fiji
The Woyan-min Project
Walkalan – Story of Bonefish 2021 single channel HD video, sound, 5:25 mins Courtesy of Alair Pambegan (storyteller), Perry Yunkaporta (cultural direction), Gabe Waterman (camera), Wik & Kugu Arts Centre, the Aurukun Indigenous Knowledge Centre and the Aurukun Shire Council
Vilimone Baleilevuka MATAIWAI Vatani, Kaba, Fiji Born Fiji, 1967 Fijian Tevutevu Ceremony of Wilfred and Ada Bowie 2018 reproduced p. 11
digital image slide, no sound,1:21 mins Collection of Wilfred and Ada Bowie Courtesy of the artist
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acknowledgements lenders
photography
Abdul Abdullah Arena Media, Melbourne Wilfred and Ada Bowie Peggy Kasabad Lane Trina Lealavaa Chan-Kyong Park Michael Rayner AM Greg Semu and The Greg SEMU Foundation Angela Tiatia Charwei Tsai
Andrew Baker Art Dealer, Brisbane Julian Chiarotto Tim Connolly Kukje Gallery, Seoul Louis Lim Michael Marzik Vilimone Baleilevuka Mataiwai Michael Reid Gallery, Sydney Onespace Gallery, Brisbane Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney
writers
exhibition research and loans
Freja Carmichael Quandamooka curator and writer
We would like to thank the following people and organisations for assisting with exhibition research, interpretation and loans Andrew Baker Art Dealer, Brisbane Aurukun Art Centre, Aurukun Aurukun Indigenous Knowledge Centre, Aurukun Kukje Gallery, Seoul Vilimone Baleilevuka Mataiwai Emma Loban Michael Reid Gallery, Sydney Milani Gallery, Brisbane Onespace Gallery, Brisbane ReDot Fine Art Gallery, Singapore Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney Sullivan+Strumpf Gallery, Sydney Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne Yavuz Gallery, Sydney
Micheal Do Curator, Contemporary Art, Sydney Opera House
editor
Janet Parfenovics
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publishing information
Published for the exhibition Ritual: The past in the present Indigenous North Australian and Asia Pacific Art Cairns Art Gallery 15 May - 22 August, 2021 ISBN: 978-0-9943576-3-2 @ Cairns Art Gallery The publication is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be directed to Cairns Art Gallery Text copyright © F. Carmichael and M. Do Publisher Cairns Art Gallery
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The exhibition Ritual: The past in the present, Indigenous North Australian and Asia Pacific Art was presented in partnership with the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (CIAF). The exhibition was curated by Julietta Park, Kylie Burke and Teho Ropeyarn.
partners and sponsors
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
This project is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland.
The Regional Arts Development Fund is a partnership between the Queensland Government and Cairns Regional Council to support local arts and culture in regional Queensland.
< Simone ARNOL Gunggandji Born Cairns, Queensland Bernard SINGLETON Jnr Umpila/Djabugay/Yirrgay Born Cairns, Queensland Medicine clay (detail) 2019-2020
CAIRNS ART GALLERY
ISBN 978-0-9943576-3-2
9 780994 357632 >
