Country Arts SA pays respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and recognises their continuing connection and spiritual relationship to these lands, waters and skies. We are committed to listening and helping care for Country, and to safeguard, share and celebrate First Nations’ living cultures.
‘Staunch women’ celebrated at Kumarangk launch
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this story contains names of people who have died.
“I want the energy and the vibration that we create to go up to all the staunch women that can’t be with us earthside today. I want us to send that up to them and say thank you.”
When Ngarrindjeri woman Ashum Owen encouraged a crowd of over 400 people to clap their hands and stomp their feet in increasing tempo, Kumarangk: Exhibition was officially opened.
It started a pattern of enthusiastic applause that never lost gusto, and a theme across speeches of honouring those who laid the foundations for this exhibition over 30 years ago by resisting the building of the Hindmarsh Island bridge.
“I painted (my) artworks because of the pain and the injustices that were going on in this country, and I still feel that pain today,” artist and activist Sandra Saunders said.
“I feel the pain when I think about Dr Doreen Kartinyeri, Aunty Maggie, Veronica — them women standing up, regardless of what was thrown at them.
“Them women are no longer with us today but hopefully what we have here is an honouring.”
Curator Dominic Guerrera said the exhibition was about Ngarrindjeri women telling their story “on their terms, from their standpoint, uninterrupted and unapologetic”.
“This exhibition is for our women (including) those who are no longer physically with us, but we know that they’ve been guiding us from the spiritual realms to make sure we get this right,” he said.
“This is what it looks like when Blak people have autonomy over Blak art.
“Long live the Ngarrindjeri matriarchy.”
Country Arts SA Chief Executive Anthony Peluso said he’d “never seen an exhibition like this before”.
“I want to say thank you very much and what deep respect I have for the Ngarrindjeri mi:minar Cultural Authority,” he said.
“You have all been amazing in the way that you have so generously trusted Country Arts SA to honour your stories.
“At Country Arts SA, the art is essential because that’s the language we use, but what is most important is how the art and the process we go through changes people’s lives and the world.”
Kumarangk: Exhibition officially opened on February 21 is at Adelaide Contemporary Experimental until April 4, with workshops and talks held each Saturday.
