Tamarra Project brings together science, art and culture.

A small remote community is bringing traditional art together with modern science to reveal the wondrous life of termites.

ART, science and culture have come together in Kalkarindji in a celebration of the humble termite, as western perspectives meet Gurindji culture in the Tamarra Termite Project.

The project, based at the Karungkarni Art Centre, is a collaboration between local artists and elders, the Scale Free Network and the University of Queensland.

A picture book based on the project is now in the works, titled Tamarra: A Story of Termites on Gurindji Country, with a launch planned for later in the year.

Gurindji/Malngin artist, Leah Leaman, who contributed to the project, said it was inspired by a desire to highlight the importance of the ants in Gurindji culture for Indigenous and western audiences.

Ms Leaman said termites, or tamarra, were a vital part of the Territory’s ecosystem.

“In life everything keeps a balance, animals, everything in nature, they’re there for a purpose, you remove something, you tip the scale a little bit, it’s no more balance,” she said.

But just as important, Ms Leaman said, was the practical and cultural significance of the creatures in Gurindji people’s “day-to-day living”, including as a treatment for gastro.

Gurindji/Malngin artist Leah Leaman at the Karungkarni Art and Culture Centre in Kalkarindji. Picture: Jason Walls

“Once you prepare the termites in a certain way, they save your lining in your stomach that’s been worn away with the bad gastro, they make the lining heal up and you eventually become healed again and your body can tolerate food again,” she said.

“They have something special that’s in their body that’s medicinal and if we kill all the termites we lose something that’s healing, that heals the body, that only they can do and nothing else can.”

Ms Leaman said the insects were also used as a face mask and in a ritual performed for new mothers and their babies, called “tjumpun”, which loosely translates as “cooking”.

“You bake the babies in it, like make it into a clay, hot, and we lather their bodies and their mum’s when they first come back from hospital,” she said.

“It strengthens their immune system, the bones of the babies, we do it as soon as they come back, a couple of weeks after birth.”

Artwork from the project. Picture: Jason Walls

Ms Leaman said the picture book was as much about science as art, “Indigenous way and non-Indigenous way, a collaboration with the use of tamarra”, to “record the story of the termite”.

“We said ‘How can we bring the plight of the termite to mainstream because mainstream views it as a pest, how can we bring their story across?’,” she said.

“It’s a good story for children but also for adults because it takes you into the world of termites and not many people talk about termites in that way, only as pests.”