Utrecht exhibition catalogue text

The Paintings

The Spinifex Arts Project grew out of the Spinifex Native Title Claim documentation process through which the traditional owners of desert country in the Great Victoria Desert of Western Australia sought and secured formal title over tribal lands. The negotiated Spinifex claim process led to an historic land settlement in 2000, now seen as a watershed case of contemporary Indigenous negotiations.

The land claim process precipitated a remarkable series of bush trips to long unvisited sacred sites. The opportunity to record and present sites, kinship and deep, continuous lines of ancestral knowledge was grasped with great enthusiasm by people who had never painted before but who had much to paint about. With a good deal of singing, laughing, and recounting of stories the Spinifex People began to record ownership of Country as paintings in order to show outsiders the living body of knowledge held by the Spinifex People.

The exhibition shown in Utrecht was displayed for the first time outside Australia. This display toured across Australia in 2000-02 raising the voice and vision of the Spinifex artists from deep inside the Great Victorian Desert to a national audience.

The Spinifex paintings are unique moments of endless ties between the land, the people and the culture. Artists are painting country in a way that shows both a deep knowledge of but also heavy responsibility for the country, the land and each other. Looking through the lens of these paintings offers a unique glimpse of these powerful and beautiful desert connections.

The Land

The Spinifex Native Title Determination Area covers some 55,000 square kilometres of pristine Sandhill and Mulga Plains country in the far east of Western Australia. The land area is diverse, with nullarbor plains to the south, spinifex bush and sandhill country to the north and a surprising variety of land forms incorporating lakes, rocky outcrops, hills, valleys and open plains.

Although one of the world's richest locations for lizard diversity, the area also features a range of desert marsupials and birdlife, as well as a truly amazing array of desert plants and insects. Many plant and animal species display unique and often wonderful adaptations to a demanding and unforgiving desert environment.

Rainfall in Spinifex Country is a mere 175-230mm per year, falling mainly in summer storms. These storms quickly sweep across the plains, bringing heavy rain and thunderstorms, running precious water into easily missed rockholes and deep soaks. The long dry spells feature high temperatures (often above 45ºC for weeks on end), baking sun and hot wind - yet night chills may fall below 0ºC.

This intense desert environment is rich for those who hold an intimate knowledge of its hidden resources and powers. Of all resources, water is the most precious: rockholes, soaks, wells, certain trees, plants and even animals can be a supply to sustain life. Finding food and water for families in such a challenging environment requires a highly developed, subtle and intimate knowledge of the country and the country's complex seasons and cycles.

The People

The Spinifex people say, 'Kapi ninti' ('We know the water'), where such knowledge of water is knowledge of life. As the Spinifex Native Title paintings document, who else could make such a claim?

The Spinifex People are a small tribal group who lived across a huge area of desert lands moving with the seasons in time with the resources of the land. Most of the Spinifex People were brought in, or came in, from tribal areas to Cundeelee Mission between the late 1940's and 50's, and the 1960's due to the joint British and Australian Maralinga Atomic Testing program in the eastern region of the Spinifex area. Not all families left during this period - an extended family group was contacted for the first time in 1987.

Generally, desert dwellers such as the Spinifex People ranged across desert lands in extended family groups depending on each other and an encyclopaedic knowledge of the land to secure water and food sources. A detailed knowledge about the grand cycle of the seasons and the minute variations of life were crucial for survival and the continuation of the tribe. Gatherings of people for ceremony, funerals, initiations and kinship obligations or extensions (marriage negotiations) required a delicate and subtle sense of the land's resources. The desert does not yield to people and does not forgive error of judgement, nor a failure to read signs. Over many, many years the Spinifex People have learnt the Law and lore of the land. They have thrived, and continue to pass on this knowledge.

In desert life, the newborn is related forever not only to an extended family group but to the particular place in the country where the actual birth took place. Through this place one becomes part of a kinship web that includes perpetual relations with others who are also related through birth to the land. With relations come responsibility and obligation - especially to people and place throughout the desert region. Ownership of land is thus always and inevitably associated with family, kinship and country. Knowledge of country is the paramount component of successful desert life.

The Culture

An intricate network of multi-faceted stories of magical beings that created, travelled across, and are contained within Country define both the land and the people's relations to it. Generally the actions, relationships and residual powers left by these magical beings formed and still sustain places and sites in the country joining each place into a dense and active web. The paths (iwarra) of these wonderful metaphysical beings crisscross a vast country, intersecting, joining up or sometimes nearing but not quite 'meeting' each other. The stories, songlines and legacy of these heroic beings have given form and nature to the country and in doing so has given deep meaning to life in the desert.

The Seven Sisters (Minyma Tjuta), the Two Men (Wati Kutjara), the Emu (Kalaya), the Kangaroo Man (Kurlpilpa), the Evil Spirit (Mamu) - these rich stories and many others, some too dangerous to speak of or even name, some more public and able to be shown, are the interconnected fabric of physical and spiritual life in Spinifex country. Spinifex paintings detail the paths, actions and deep meanings of these stories as they pass across country, travel through places and provide relations between people.

The lore and Laws of these stories provide the rules and framework for successful and ongoing desert life. They have worked for many thousands of years and have provided a powerful backdrop for reciprocal responsibilities between people and land. The basic rule is simple: Do the right thing (by the country, family and community) and the world is as it should be.

Conclusion - holding up the future

When the Spinifex People first lodged and began to negotiate the Native Title claim they were in fact continuing a long held vision to once again actively manage and appropriately develop tribal lands. Convinced that long term community security and stability was best maintained on the strengths and responsibilities of traditional culture, the Spinifex People consistently sought to make community management and development goals consistent with and deferential to the obligations and requirements of Spinifex culture. Major success with the land negotiations confirmed the potential of this strategic approach and gave the community great heart that cultural integrity could indeed continue to forge a path for success.

Painting has become an important means for pursuing this path and pursuing community developmental aspirations in a contemporary setting. Artwork has become a vehicle for communicating the vast body of knowledge about desert life held by the Spinifex People whilst at the same time dramatically acknowledging the status and value of the traditional owners who hold and must pass on that knowledge. An art project based around visiting country, camping, painting and documenting stories provides artists with a flexible vehicle to record promote and pass on elements of culture crucial to sustaining the long term future and health of the Spinifex People. As paintings are produced and recorded a body of knowledge and a way of life is being replicated and laid down as a guiding force for continuing life in the desert. Spinifex artists paint with a view to providing future generations with an insight into the wonders, strengths and beauty of Spinifex country. Please enjoy the paintings, the stories and the knowledge of the Spinifex People.