When dreams combine
Kangkura-KangkuraKu — A Sister’s Story brings together two dreaming stories, the honey ant and the Seven Sisters creation.
To suck and savour the ultra-prized sweet liquid from the bloated bellies of the honey ant is not an easy task. It involves first tracking down a mulga tree, then digging underground for about a metre to discover the tunnels that lead to the mother lode, the nest of the honey ants.
The honey ants are a significant ancestral creation story in the area around Amata, a remote Aboriginal community in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands in the far north of South Australia. The Tjala tjukurpa, or honey ant dreaming, is important because this locality is perfectly situated on top of a major honey ant site.
The traditional custodian for the honey ant dreaming is senior artist Mick Wikilyiri, who handed down his story to his five daughters, collectively known as the Ken Sisters. Since then, the sisters have been forging their own interpretation of the story in paintings such as Seven Sisters, which won the 2016 Wynne Prize for landscape, and Kangkura-KangkuraKu — A Sister’s Story, which was shown at this year’s Adelaide Biennial and then acquired by the Art Gallery of South Australia. It is currently on show at the gallery in Adelaide.
Kangkura-KangkuraKu — A Sister’s Story brings together two dreaming stories — the honey ant and the Seven Sisters creation story, about women being chased by a bad man but being protected by their elder sisters. These are stories that the Ken Sisters feel responsible for, and feel a strong connection concerning family. One of the sisters, Yaritji Young, for instance, recently said: “The one thing about our family is that we hold each other close and do everything together. We grew up that way, and now we are raising the next generation this way. We are holding on to them tight like a strong hug.”
Furthermore, speaking at the Adelaide Biennial, the Ken Sisters said they painted Kangkura-KangkuraKu — A Sister’s Story to “keep our parents’ culture alive, and for our grandkids to retain the knowledge of who we are and who they are … the painting is so important because of that knowledge transfer and it keeps our souls alive.”
The monumental painting is spread across three panels, with each panel measuring 3m high and 2m wide. It took the five sisters — Freda Brady, Sandra Ken, Tjungkara Ken, Maringka Tunkin and Tingila Yaritji Young, facilitated by their mother, Paniny Mick — two months to complete, and it was all collaborative.
At the AGSA, curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Nici Cumpston and I stand before the painting and she says it is the first time the sisters have painted together with their mum, and it is also the first time they have painted on such a large scale.
Cumpston explains that the sisters painted the work while sitting around the canvases, which were placed on the ground. “The way they work is almost like an ancestral call and response,” she says.
“One sister will make her marks and then another sister will take it from that point and then move to her part of the story and then another sister will take over. They are responding to each other and this helps bring the painting together as a unified collaboration.
“They will be singing parts of the story, there will be young ones around them while they are doing this, so they are hearing these stories of the Tjala honey ant and the Seven Sisters creation story.”
While the stories within the painting are sacred, the artists depict specific places from their country, such as trees, rocky outcrops, waterholes, and gorges, that are connected to both ancestral stories.
“It is an incredible work and quite a feat to be able to create something at this scale that’s so alive and just draws you in,” says Cumpston. “Every time I look at it, I see a different part of it because it is so varied. It’s not that bigger is better, but gee, this really does grab your attention, not only because of the scale but also the beauty within the work itself.”
Ken Sisters: Freda Brady, Sandra Ken, Tjungkara Ken, Paniny Mick, Maringka Tunkin, Yaritji Young, Kangkura-KangkuraKu — A Sister’s Story, 2017.
Collection Art Gallery of South Australia. On display, AGSA, Adelaide.
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