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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-10-17 Daily Xml
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Tarnanthi Festival

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (15:30): My question is to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. Will the minister inform the council about the Tarnanthi Festival for 2023 launching later on this week?

The Hon. I.K. Hunter: On Thursday night.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (15:31): I thank the honourable member for his question and his continued interest in this area. The annual Tarnanthi Festival in 2023 will launch, as the Hon. Ian Hunter behind me has suggested, on Thursday 19 October, later this week, and is sure to be—as it always is—one of the highlights on the South Australian cultural and arts calendar.

Tarnanthi, presented by the Art Gallery of South Australia with support from the government of South Australia, provides an opportunity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists from right across Australia to display stories of their culture through art. I have mentioned a number of times in this chamber the importance of art in Aboriginal culture and Aboriginal communities. It does a whole range of things.

It provides valuable income for people, people who often don't get to use their culture in a way that is self-determinative and provides them with an income. It also is a way to keep stories alive, to keep culture going from generation to generation. The institutions that are built up like Tarnanthi and other Aboriginal art institutions provide, on multiple levels, exceptionally important outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

In addition to exhibitions at the Art Gallery, the festival is comprised of an art fair, artist talks, performances, workshops, education programs and activities. There is something for nearly everyone at the festival, and is a generous invitation to the broader community to share in the richness and beauty of the oldest living culture we have on this planet. The program is almost overwhelming in how exciting the events are, but I am happy to outline just a few of them for the council.

This Thursday, the festival will be launched at the Art Gallery with a keynote address by Nayuku Puurka-ku Robert Fielding from the community of Mimili and a musical performance by talented singer-songwriter Dan Sultan. At Light Square in Adelaide, at what is going to be called Light Adelaide, attendees can catch Rising Sun, a multimedia storytelling project that documents and shares the stories of the Adnyamathanha culture. Rising Sun is comprised of four contemporary photographic stories by over a dozen artists, each of which invites the viewer into the beauty of the Flinders Ranges and surrounds and, in doing so, highlights the importance and power of Adnyamathanha land and culture.

At the JamFactory studio, Ernabella Arts are presenting an exhibition of ceramic works by several artists from their centre in a celebration over 20 years of ceramic works. It is a real pleasure that Ernabella Arts is at the JamFactory. I have certainly had members of that community talk to me over the last few months about their excitement at being at the JamFactory studio. Ernabella Arts is the oldest continuing Aboriginal arts centre anywhere in the country, having been established somewhere in either 1948 or 1946, and is an absolute essential hub of that community.

I was very honoured in August of this year when I was on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands to call into Ernabella Arts centre to announce in excess of $700,000 additional funding for that arts centre to allow a significant increase of the exhibition area, of the waddy room of the men's artists room, and for the first time for proper insulation and air conditioning in the ceramics studio out the back of the Ernabella Arts centre.

I look forward to the Ernabella Arts centre continuing to lead the way in so many areas, as it has in the past with painting and textiles over the past 20 to 30 years and now as a leader in the ceramics movement from around Australia's Aboriginal arts world.

Finally, our regions aren't forgotten. As part of the Tarnanthi Festival, for example, Saltbush Country will be on display at the Port Pirie Regional Art Gallery. This exhibition will display the works of Aboriginal artists working independently across regional South Australia. These works have been supported as a result of Tarnanthi's and Country Arts SA community workshops and mentoring for artists across these regions. I highly recommend to members of this chamber and to the South Australian public the excellent displays of culture and talent that will be on as part of the Tarnanthi Festival, celebrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts and culture.

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