STILL WALKING COUNTRY
"Nya-laju, Nyurri Parta-yankuni"
"We are here, Still walking around"
(This work contains images of people who have since died)
In 2012, invited by Martu artists to respond to Martu country, Lynette travelled to with community members and long time collaborator Pete Brundle to Wandilly, Claypan where the group camped for 10 days.
The resulting work draws viewers into an understanding of the Martu and their inextricable connection to the Western Desert, via the eyes and ears of a newcomer to that country.
Always Walking Country was commissioned by Freemantle Arts Centre for the We Don’t Need a Map exhibition and supported by Martumili.
Mabel in spinifex - excerpt
“On my return from the desert freshly showered in Newman yet feeling between worlds I jumped in a cab at the airport in Sydney. The taxi driver wanted to know where I had just flown from. He was, like many taxi drivers, recently arrived here. He fed the GPS with my address and as we drove we talked. I told him I had flown from Perth but that I had been for some days in the desert in W.A. he said “Is there desert in W.A? What’s it like?”
I had come from a parallel world where every dune and every inch of clay pan is known by feet and eyes that have absorbed generationally, the intricate, intimate detail of place. Like the green sea turtle imprinted with the earths electro magnetic pulse on its first short scurry to the sea, these women hold in their bones a divining rod for this place and all it is, including its abundance. Invisible to me.
Burning,
Hunting,
Cooking,
Singing.
This work that has emerged from my collaborator Pete Brundle and myself is a small opening to a vista that is immense. I did not make the opening, it came via an invitation. I thought it was an invitation to a past because that is all I understood was left. But I was wrong and the shock of that misunderstanding reverberates still. I can only show you what we saw, not the mark that it left, though my hope is you will feel some of that.
Mabel sleeps
Except to say, there is something in the ignorance of the taxi driver about the country he is living in, my own ignorance and that of generations before who came and could not see: the land management practices still undertaken, the abundance, a few hours hunting returns 36 goannas, the knowledge of heat and seed and flower and how they combine. In a few days ,walking, sitting, hunting I saw more than I could absorb and more than I can recall. Every moment a lesson in this land. Watch Ngamaru teach Warta, a newcomer to country, how to gut the goanna, with stick and hand, and you will see an alternate history. One being written now. That’s the invitation at the heart of this work.
I recalled when I was out there, surprised by the bounty of water and fruits, game and shade, the words of James Cook in his last journal entry on the subject of the “natives” of New Hollande. Surprisingly perhaps he had understood something correctly.
“The Earth and sea of their own accord furnishes them with all things necessary for life; they covet not Magnificent Houses, Houshold-stuff &Ca. they live in a warm and fine Climate and enjoy a very wholsome Air, so that they have very little need of Clothing and this they seem to be fully sencible of, for many to whome we gave Cloth &Ca. to, left it carlessly upon the Sea beach and in the woods as a thing they had no manner of use for. In short they seem'd to set no Value upon any thing we gave them nor would they ever part with any thing of their own for any one article we could offer them; this, in my opinion argues that they think themselves provided with all the necessarys of Life … I shall conclude the account of this Country”
Still walking country. Martu.
Still Walking Country - excerpt