Articles - 31 July 2007

Cross Country, Canning Stock Route project

Cross Country, Canning Stock Route Project (working title) was conceived in 2005, the vision of Carly Davenport-Acker, Cultural Relations Manager at Perth based cultural organisation FORM, and her partner Tim Acker, Project Officer for Aboriginal Economic Development.

Cross Country is a unique coalition of nine remote Aboriginal art centres, their communities, and Perth-based cultural organisation FORM. Around 70 acclaimed artists and professionals are participating in a project that stretches across the Pilbara, Kimberley, Midwest and Goldfields regions of Western Australia's western deserts. This project will develop a travelling exhibition, book and multimedia package.

Cross Country is multilingual and encompasses six core languages, all spoken across the region. Together, the communities and associated Aboriginal art centres represent a not only a strong regional force in the Western Australian cultural sector, but an even greater force in the push to ensure the cultures, histories, talents and stories of remote Indigenous communities remain alive and relevant in a contemporary social/cultural context. The participating Indigenous Art Centres are Tjukurba Gallery (Wiluna), Martumili Artists (six Martu communities), Yulparija Artists (Bidyadanga), Mangkaja Artists (Fitzroy Crossing), Ngurra Artists (Wangkajungka), Paruku IPA (Mulan), Warlayirti Artist (Balgo), Papunya Tula (Kiwirrkurra) and Kayili Artists (Patjarr).

Desert, Western Australia, Photographer: Tim Acker

Tracing the indirect outback line of the Canning Stock Route - a space steeped in history and mythology, and imbued with a sense of mystery in the collective Australian imagination - Cross Country takes Indigenous artists, youth and elders back to Country where they will record their histories of the Route via art (painting, weaving and carving) and storytelling, to reestablish their place in this unique Australian narrative. View images

At the project's heart is the relationship between people and Country, and the elements that contribute to this innate relationship: environment, place, culture. Communication and knowledge-exchange are also key elements - particularly between elders and Indigenous youth. Carly describes the project as 'a great force of Elders sharing knowledge with youth - intergenerational exchange and knowledge.' This is an exchange that may appear relatively simple on paper, yet is immensely important in the survival of memory, cultural and artistic practice, and sense of place and belonging.

Cross Country's focus portraying, supporting and working directly with Indigenous communities means that the benefits and positive impacts can have real sustainability and outlast the duration of the project. While incorporating professional development training opportunities, including an emerging Indigenous curator program, Cross Country utilises existing professional skills in Indigenous communities. This includes local Indigenous translators, project facilitators, cultural liaison officers, as well as a nurse, mechanic, the artists, and Elders and Custodians of Country. Wally Caruana, former Aboriginal Arts Curator at the National Gallery of Australia, has also come on board as guest-curator and lead mentor for the curators' program which will feed into the project.

Through this holistic, all-encompassing approach, Cross Country aims to become a cornerstone for social, professional and artistic capacity-building for remote Indigenous communities, opening up new ways for Indigenous youth to connect with their Country, participate in their culture and (re)establish an important sense of belonging, place and pride.

Despite the extent of this project - or perhaps because of it - Carly has been asked, "Why is this project so important? Why now?"

When the first filters of an idea came to Carly and partner Tim, they mapped out the region, looking for anything that might have been done before them. Carly says they soon realised that 'there was a gaping big hole in this desert heart' in terms of an accurate portrayal of history and cultural representation. Perhaps, in premonition of the almost impossible enormity of the project, it was over a year before they presented their proposal to FORM.

On one level, Carly describes Cross Country as 'an acknowledgment of the need to build social capacity.' This is a crucial reason why resources company BHP Billiton Iron Ore (BHPBIO) became a major partner on the project. BHPBIO is interested in the benefits of social capacity-building in the Pilbara region, an isolated but stunning environment that is central to their iron ore operations, and houses the majority of their workers and families in the booming towns of Newman and Port Hedland.

Other partners on Cross Country are Lotterywest, Department of Industry and Resources and the Office of Aboriginal Economic Development. In a historic move, the Indigenous Land Corporation also recently joined the team as a partner, signaling the Corporation's first official support of a cultural sector project.

Another significant factor in the birth and growth of Cross Country is the state in which it takes place. Western Australia is a strange place; a huge portion of land that takes up one third of the continent yet is immensely isolated. The path the Canning Stock Route traces, appearing on a map like a vein under the skin, covers a vast expanse of land. Spanning the Kimberley, Pilbara, Midwest and Goldfields regions of Western Australia, the Route winds through some of the most isolated and diverse country in the world. When considering this, it is easy to imagine getting lost in these places. Perhaps even easier to imagine individual histories, narratives, customs and cultures getting lost.

'So much potential is uncelebrated in Western Australia', Carly admits. 'Western Australia is the largest landmass in the country, and has the largest diversity of Aboriginal groups ... there is such a rich repository that remains untapped.'

I ask her, perhaps ignorantly, why she believes this to be the case. 'It's a remiss of Western Australia not to celebrate the sheer breadth and dynamism of Aboriginal cultures,' she says. Her response also sums up the raison d'etre of Cross Country itself.

She describes it in a manner that makes me think of a kind of special potion, something truly magical bubbling away quietly in a corner. 'Alchemy between celebrating cultural diversity and the universal way that people connect with the land', she says.

The project's foundation being in the cultural sector is also significant, and says bigger things about the role of arts and cultural activity in building social capacity and enabling personal and community strength, confidence and sustainability. 'Art is one of the best vehicles for expressing the relationship between people and place,' Carly states.

Visual art - be it design, craft, fine art, three-dimensional, two-dimensional - is a powerful communicator as it appeals to the inherent visuality in many cultures and more general notions of 'seeing is believing'. For many people, sight is a primary means of accessing information and formulating ideas. People are affected, moved by what they see. It can alter your perceptions, make you think differently.

Also integral to Cross Country, as in all of FORM's Indigenous projects facilitated by Carly, is a solid grounding in educational and public programs. 'Programs that are without prejudice, that involve the whole community - young and old', she adds.

Certainly, the whole community seemed to be involved in a previous program devised by Carly for FORM: the Port Hedland-based Clever with our Hands. This fibre arts program, led by artist Nalda Searles and Noongar bush sculptor Janine McAullay Bott, attracted around 60-75 participants every day. Comprised of mentoring sessions for all adults, and workshops with local schoolchildren and teenagers, all for free, the program taught basket-making skills with a focus on the significance of these practices on livelihoods and sustainability.

The value of interactive public programs and workshops cannot be underestimated. Carly surmises, 'Its all about public access and community response and engagement.' This is especially so for Indigenous communities in remote areas, where programs such as Clever with our Hands are community and site-specific and can work with the communities involved, rather than above or apart from them. It is this intimate, encompassing methodology that really garners participation and long-term benefits. Again, the emphasis here is on strengthening those vital elements: identity, culture, connection to Country, sense of place.

Another special factor in both Cross Country and Clever with our Hands is their bilingual components; ensuring an egalitarian environment, with nobody feeling isolated.

FORM's Indigenous program is relatively new but has already achieved significant milestones. Jason Tinker Belongs to Country/Mukurru Karrimara Ngurraramartaji was a bilingual exhibition held in the Pilbara town of Newman in 2006. Jason Tinker Belongs to Country was received as a hit by both the Martu and non-Indigenous communities. While held in a State Prison, artist Jason Tinker created works featuring his Martu country and ancestral, family relationships. The works are vivid landscapes and portraits all painted from memory. This was FORM's first bilingual exhibition and catalogue, translated into Martu Wangka. Carly visited Tinker in prison as part of the project development.

Similarly, Woven Forms: Contemporary basket making in Australia also attracted critical acclaim and public enthusiasm. A national touring exhibition developed by Object Gallery and supported by FORM, Woven Forms presented innovative basket works by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists from around Australia. It was the first survey exhibition of contemporary basketry in Australia.

The Cultural Strands/Woven Visions national forum held by FORM early in 2006 was inspired by Woven Forms. The forum garnered new awareness and appreciation of contemporary Indigenous culture and artistic practice in Western Australia, while functioning as a building block for future Indigenous community-focused programs and cross-cultural partnerships. The presentations and discussions at the forum provided the material and impetus for FORM's subsequent publication, Cultural Strands.

Carly says that in many ways Cross Country, along with FORM's other Indigenous projects, is about 'cultural marketing' - acknowledging different cultures and working within the context of those specific cultures to try and ensure their value is maintained, their historic underpinnings kept visible, and their relevance and role in contemporary society reiterated.

It is because of these underlying themes and holistic objectives that Cross Country is so ambitious - and has so much potential for changing the very landscape on which Australians consider their cultural identity, history and narrative. Cross Country is not just about the exhibition at the end, the completed artworks. These things do offer tangible, material outcomes for the project as a whole, as well as something allowing the wider public to connect with the deeper themes - sort of like a portal. As Carly describes it, 'there is a powerful magic that objects can have.' And they are incredibly important because of this. Yet beyond these beautiful, compelling objects lies something unspoken, unseen; something with powerful implications not only for their makers but for the very environment that surrounds them. This resonance is what builds real value into all good exhibitions - and especially so for Cross Country and the years of development that have shaped this larger-than-life project.

Elisha Buttler
July, 2007

Elisha Buttler is a writer and curator based at FORM in Perth, Western Australia. She has written art theory and fiction for Southerly, Page Seventeen and Lip, as well as Art & Australia, Arts Hub, UK Craft, Perth Now and The North West Telegraph.

Also see: 716 craft·design Issue #23 August 2007
Special issue on Indigenous craft and design