Bush TVs: piliyi good one

Some themes were tricky to interpret, either due to cultural sensitivity and painful memories of periods of history or that the theme was so large in its breadth. The themes had to be condensed into a small box. These conundrums were solved by people working together, tossing around ideas, producing small sketches and working drawings, going out to the sites where events happened and discussing the problems with the old people of the community. The period of time from when the themes were identified to when the Bush TVs were installed in Nyinkka Nyunyu was fifteen months of constant daily work by around twelve people.

Many other projects influenced the making of the dioramas. Tennant Creek has had an active artist-in-residence program since 1996, bringing professional artists to town, or out bush, top work alongside local artists. The idea of the residencies is to share skills and experiences with all parties coming away enriched by the experience of working together. The program has been incredibly successful with six residencies under our belt to date. It was from the experience of a sculpture workshop and of sharing skills with artist Alison Clouston that Annie Nangali Jones and Betty Nakkamarra Morrison made the cattle, horses and goats in the Bush TVs out of cut, sewn and stuffed leather.

Many artists working on the dioramas brought their own love of making things into the Bush TVs, carefully fashioning stockyard fences and water tanks through memory and familiarity with materials commonly used on a cattle station. Artists like Leo Jakkamarra Dixon and Gordon Jangali Napper created miniature replicas of aspects of their early life. Other artists like Trisha Narrurlu Frank assisted younger artists, Letitia Farrel for example, make things they had never seen before like the bush brooms in the women’s side diorama of the cattle station life, or buildings and places that no longer exist. Older people’s memories were being translated by a younger generation – in some cases with no photographs or images to assist the process.

The Bush TVs are works of art that have been developed through the collaboration and influence of numerous people. There is no individual who can put their stamp on the work and there are no names under the individual dioramas. The work comes from senior Traditional Owners in the community directing younger community members and papulanyi (non-Aboriginal people) in how they wanted their stories to be told, seen and interpreted. The handiwork of certain individuals can be seen, but the whole is a cohesive community expression of art, history and contemporary life.

First published in Art Link. Handmade: the new labour. Vol 25 No1 2005

Also published in www.rouge.com.au