Art behind weapons of war reviving skills

The Tarnanthi festival of contemporary indigenous art showcases the work of more than 1200 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists.

Sally Scales and spearmaker Frank Young at the Art Gallery of South Australia with Peter Mungkuri’s Puno (Trees). Picture: James Elsby

“I am 70 and I still throw spears,’’ declares indigenous artist Frank Young, who has travelled hund­reds of kilometres from Amata, his community in South Australia’s APY Lands, to Adelaide for the officia­l opening of indigenous art extravaganza Tarnanthi.

The festival of contemporary indigenous art was launched on Thursday and showcases the work of more than 1200 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists. Exhibits range from trad­it­ional landscapes and ceremon­ial funer­al poles to a car wreck, comics and delicate bark paintings.

The festival, which has drawn on $63m in funding since its 2015 inception and is now the biggest such event, is held at 30 South Australian venues, including the Art Gallery of South Australia.

Young, who still musters ­cam­els, has a spear and painting on exhibit at Murray Bridge in a satel­lite Tarnanthi show exploring the role of weapons in war and in protecting indigenous land.

He says the spears he makes are not merely artworks but “serious weapons that reflect the laws and customs of my people’’.

The Amata elder has also made some of the 500 spears that comprise the ambitious installation Kulata Tjuta, which was a centrepiece of Tarnanthi in 2017 and is now heading to France. In a move AGSA said was “a diplomatic and artistic coup’’, Kulata Tjuta will open at the Musee des Beaux-Arts de Rennes in Brittany in October next year.

The project, in which spears made by more than 100 men are suspended in mid-air, is a collaboration between AGSA and the APY Art Centre Collective.

Young and centre spokeswoman Sally Scales said it had revived­ spearmaking in Amata. Said Young: “I wanted to pass on this skill.’’

According to Scales, Young’s grandson is now one of the commun­ity’s best spearmakers. She said the spears project had led to a “real resurgence of interest in this as a men’s project. All of them are having a go and earning some money at the same time’’.

Tarnanthi has a growing glo­bal­ reach: 20 bark paintings from Yirrkala in Arnhem Land will tour the US after their SA outing. They will then be housed at the University of Virg­in­ia’s Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal art gallery, ­America’s only museum ded­i­c­at­ed to indigenous Australian art.

Yirrkala elder and artist ­Djam­bawa Marawili, who gave Tar­nan­thi’s opening address, said Tarnanthi told the “great found­ation stories of Australia’’.

Rosemary Neill flew to Adelaide with the assistance of AGSA