This exhibition includes a series by each artist illustrating song cycles through which Yolngu people celebrate their creation stories. Don’t miss the Floortalk by John Stanton, Curator and Directior of the Berndt Museum of Anothropology, UWA.
2-3pm, Sunday the 25th of June
Booking Essential The Barnumbirr Manikay (Morning Star) series by Jack Wunuwun, consists of a single large canvas and 30 small bark paintings produced two years before his death in 1990. John Bulun Bulun produced his Murrukundja Manikay cycle of one large canvas and 25 small bark paintings in response to the Morning Star series. The Yolngu experience their world as being divided into two moieties, dhuwa and yirritja, everything being classified as belonging to one or the other. Places, seasons, winds, flora and fauna exist in complementary relationships and people are bound by laws which determine the complex web of their social and ceremonial interactions, including who they can marry. Jack Wunuwun and the Barnumbirr Manikay are of the Dhuwa moiety, whereas John Bulun Bulun and the Murrukundjeh ritual are yirritja. Both of these artists are from Maningrida in Central Arnhem Land. Maningrida Arts and Culture promotes the work of more than 700 artists from the Maningrida region in Central Arnhem Land. Bark paintings, wooden and fibre sculptures, fibre items, prints and works in bronze and aluminium, are created by Maningrida Artists. Maningrida art is heterogeneous, dynamic and innovative, reflecting the diversity of languages and cultures present in the region. For more information please click here.
Image: © John Bulun Bulun, licensed by VISCOPY, 2006
