Bush TVs: piliyi good one

Alison Alder

Nyinkka Nyunyu is an art and culture centre located on Warumungu land in Tennant Creek, right in the middle of the Northern Territory. The centre opened in July 2003 after many years of planning, research, consultation and fund-raising. From the time the idea came up to build something alongside the sacred site of Nyinkka Nyunyu (the home of the spiky tailed goanna) art was always going to be an integral part of the project as well as the primary means of transferring information across generations, language groups, nationalities and interests. Traditional owners of partta, (hard rock country) the country on which Tennant Creek stands, wanted to make sure that the wumpurrarni (Warumungu) version of history and contemporary life was told ‘the proper way’, a fair request although it was difficult to know exactly how that was going to be achieved.

The idea of dioramas, or Bush TVs, as they became known within the community, came about through a series of brainstorming sessions to discover the means to present history and contemporary life through art to a diverse audience. A process of workshops began to find a common visual thread to tie the dioramas together and a Warumungu artist, Jimmy Frank Jnr, who was experienced in working with wood, was asked to make some prototypes of the figurative elements for the Bush TVs. There were several constraints that Junior had to work within. Such as the figures being able to be made by many people with a variety of skills and not being recognisable as any particular person. Junior was also instructed by some senior Aboriginal women (Edith Graham Nakkamarra and Judy Nixon Nakkamarra) to use the wood of kalkarti (acacia cowleana or soapbush) as it was readily available, soft and easy to carve. Junior worked on the concept and came up with the idea of a simple stick figure made out of kalkarti, with the head, hands and feet made out of Spinifex resin. The figures were elegant and adaptable, and it was decided to go ahead with the idea. When full-scale production began, the team making the dioramas dropped the Spinifex resin as everyone melted their hands when trying to manipulate the resin and changed over to clay, which was much easier to use. (The Spinifex resin is burnt over a fire on top of a spade, and has to be moulded when very hot otherwise it is too hard to manipulate. Men who regularly work with the resin develop hard callouses on their hands.)

The team making the dioramas was made up of a wide variety of people, and although all had Aboriginality in common – nearly all being Warumungu – most had no art making experience and had never seen a diorama before. It became a process of experimentation and discovery to find the means to express the ideas put forward by the elders who were directing the whole process of the interpretive display for Nyinkka Nyunyu.