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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-08-31 Daily Xml
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Wandjuk Marika Memorial 3D Award

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (14:39): My question is to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. Will the minister inform the council about the winner of this year's Wandjuk Marika Memorial 3D Award at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, held in Darwin earlier this month?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (14:39): I thank the honourable member for his question and his ongoing interest in this area. The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards are the most prestigious awards in Australia for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art and also the longest running. The awards were established in 1984 and celebrate all forms of arts media. Many are commemorated with their own categories, such as the bark painting and also the multimedia awards. These awards are celebrated as part of the Darwin Festival and see Indigenous artists from all over the country gather to commemorate these works.

As I said, the awards have been going for decades now, since 1984. They are colloquially known as the Telstra's and are regarded as the highest awards annually specifically for Indigenous art. I was delighted to hear this year that the Wandjuk Marika Memorial 3D Award was presented to Anne Thompson, an artist from Ernabella Arts in the Pukatja community on the APY lands, for her work, Anangu History. Anne's award-winning work, Anangu History, is made up from two separate three-dimensional structures, with one depicting how life was before and the other showing how it is now.

The works highlight the modernisation of what Anne describes as a beautiful landscape, and the at times negative impact on the modern life of Anne's community. I know Anne hopes her artwork shows that it is everyone's responsibility to care for and nurture the environment and that a peaceful life in the bush is a life that, in her view, the community is meant to live.

Anne first started working in the ceramic art medium during high school, and has continued her love of this practice throughout her life, describing it as a meditation on her love for nature and the environment. Also, to Anne's credit, outside of art she is a qualified interpreter and an advocate for young people in remote communities. She is based at Ernabella Arts, which, as I informed the chamber yesterday, is the oldest continuously running Indigenous arts centre in Australia. I was pleased to have visited only in recent weeks the art centre at Ernabella, although when I visited Anne had just left to go up to Darwin for the actual awards.

The studio is a hub for artists and should be commended for its status as a nationally recognised culturally significant studio. As I mentioned, earlier this week the government was very proud to be able to announce that more than $700,000 in funding would be used for extensions and refurbishment of the Ernabella Arts centre so we can see world-leading and national award-winning works like Anne Thompson's ceramics continue to flourish at Ernabella Arts in the Pukatja community.

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