KANANGOOR/Shimmer : The University of Western Australia

KANANGOOR / Shimmer

13 May – 19 August 2023

In co-curating this exhibition, Amanda Bell, Badimia and Yued artist and curator, and Lee Kinsella, LWAG curator, offer visitors a journey through the Gallery space, guided by sound and light. Drawing upon resonate objects from several UWA collections, and enriched by new commissions from Amanda Bell, Corey Khan and Rickeeta Walley, KANANGOOR/Shimmer is a consideration of our relationship with our environment. You are invited to follow the wardong in flight as we travel across Country and recognise reverberations of comfort and of disquiet.

We are the crow, and the crow are we…

I went around to another's Country, later realising with sorrow it was my own.
Ours,
and mine, and I didn't know
That the river was giving and giving and in the places it did,

There was this space.

And in that space the young wardong flew alone

This terrible space between us and that river and how that could never be bridged.

I could shift, spin, swirl n shimmy and never touch the salty sandy others side.

Forever separated from those springs amongst the salt.

In that separation, the wardong mob called and cried and cawed swimming in the hot full air.

Black. Flesh. Blood. Red.

the sun shimmer off salt shifting

tuarts falling on the dry earth heaving

Derbil Yerrigan softly waarangkiny

bilya muddied as the kwilena float

upside and down, downside and up

then shifting

And in that shift, wardong mob mourned.

Across Whadjuk Country, old man cried for that young one,

and on Wardandi land, the mob sung out for their winged koolang

I accept;

There will be salt for me, and salt until I am no longer.

I have a connection to salt and I am the salt and it cuts and it comforts and is the salt. And the salt is the sorrow and on into the shimmer

Because the salt shifting

and shining, and Shimmer

Shim

Shi

Sh

Poem by Amanda Bell

Crow feather resting on a mirror reflecting leaves from a tree above

Image: Amanda Bell, ... and the crow are we, 2023, impression of newly commissioned work to be installed in the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, The University of Western Australia. Copyright and courtesy of the artist.

KANANGOOR / Shimmer considers responses to the landscape – of objects that emerge from a profound engagement with land to others that communicate a sense of dislocation or strangeness. The exhibition includes works of protest and works of remarkable power, beauty and delicacy, such as the shimmering silk batik fabrics produced by Utopian artists, and Joseph Williams Jungarrayi’s remarkable paintings overlaid upon the mining maps from an abandoned gold mine. What is consistent to all is a sense of agency – of the land being active and vital.

Artists includeYaluritja Clarrie Isaacs; Sandra Hill;Christopher Pease; Ben Pushman; Emily Kame Kngwarreye; Utopia batik artists: Polly Nelson Gnale, Gloria Tamerre Petyarre, Jeannie Petyarre, Lena Skinner Gnale, Rosie Kngwarre, Nora Petyarre, Ollie Kemarre, Gladdie Kemarre, Roese Pwerle, Old Polly Gnale, Glory Gnale and Joy Petyarre; Tennant Creek Brio artists: Joseph Williams Jungarayi, Jimmy Frank Japarula and Lévi McLean; Elisabeth Kruger; Barbara Haddy; Danielle Freakley; Katie Breckon; Bethamy Linton; Jody Quackenbush and the handwritten music scores of composer Meta Overman. Newly commissioned work includes an immersive sound and light journey by Amanda Bell; Corey Khan presents an installation detailing the creation of river systems by 'Gnangangarich Waguyl' (Hairy Faced Serpent) and Rickeeta Walley presents new music.

The installation, Wirringkirri, by Joseph Williams Jungarayi, Jimmy Frank Japarula, and Lévi McLean, in the Janet Holmes à Court gallery, is curated by Jessyca Hutchens for the Berndt Museum. It was first presented as part of the exhibition Black Sky (2023) and will continue to accrete new meanings and elements as part of KANANGOOR/Shimmer.

KANANGOOR

Song by Rickeeta Walley

Rickeeta Walley, Kanangoor, 2023, composition and vocals: Rickeeta Walley; didgeridoo: Richard Walley; duration: 3 minutes. Commissioned for the KANANGOOR/Shimmer exhibition, The University of Western Australia, 13 May – 19 August 2023