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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/aug/28/the-journey-down-road-trip-wa-museum-boola-bardip-warnarral-ngoorrngoorrool>
"They appear out of nowhere. A series of rusted car wrecks baked into the red
dirt flanking the Great Northern Highway near Warmun, a small Indigenous
township in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Some are wreathed in a
tangle of weeds, others so molten the earth might swallow them whole.
It’s a visually arresting sight, but to Gija woman Madeline Purdie these
decaying relics are a potent reminder of her childhood. “When I was growing up
in Warmun, there were probably only three cars in the whole community,” she
says. “Every day we would go out bush and we’d all jump on the tray, packed
like sardines. People were sitting on our laps, on the roof, on the bull bars.
No one got left behind.”
Purdie, an artist and the chairperson of the Warmun Arts Centre, continues: “If
you break down, no one’s coming to get you. So the cars, they stay out there on
the land.”
Purdie’s family had a 1975 Mazda ute that met the same fate: breaking down and
later being scorched by fire. In its heyday, the ute crisscrossed the Kimberley
on fishing and camping trips, but this month it’s going on its biggest
adventure yet: as the centrepiece of WA-based production company Tura New
Music’s ambitious new work
The Journey Down, which premiered in Kununurra on
24 August."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
