Welcome to Songspirals: Yolŋu women sharing & nourishing milkarri. Thank you for being here to
understand our culture, our Law, our songlines, and how we live our way of life. We will do a cleansing as you enter. We do this every time that we go to a place that our spirit doesn’t recognise, so that we have a longer and true connection with the land.
With this exhibition, we share about Bawaka, about our place, our land, our people and our songspirals. Please join us and be cleansed by the smoke, then come on a journey with us, a journey of songspirals from north-east Arnhem Land.
The exhibition includes print-making, weaving, and audio-visual works, connected to the Yolŋu kinship system, Gurruṯu, and five songspirals: Wuymirri (whale), Wukuṉ (gathering of the clouds), Guwak (messenger bird), Wititj (rainbow serpent) and Goŋ-Gurtha (Fire keeper). The exhibition is a manifestation of the inter-generational continuation and nourishment of songspirals and milkarri by Yolŋu women in North East Arnhem Land.
Songspirals are often called songlines or song cycles. We call them songspirals as they spiral out and spiral in, they go up and down, round and round, forever. Yolŋu women from North East Arnhem Land in northern Australia, cry the songspirals, we keen the songspirals—this is what we call milkarri. Only women keen milkarri. Milkarri is an ancient song, an ancient poem, a map, a ceremony and a guide, but it is more than all this too. Milkarri is a very powerful thing in Yolŋu life. The knowledge and stories in this exhibition are an invitation to share in some of what we, Yolŋu people, know and do as we live songspirals today.
Gurrutu, Yolŋu kinship
Gurruṯu is a pattern of relationships, the way we are connected to one another and to everything, including our homelands. Songspirals are an expression of gurruṯu, they cycle out like the
generations, like the family connections and kinship relationships that bind us all together, as Yolŋu and with Country. This kinship, gurruṯu, underpins who we are. It is between us Yolŋu, with each
other and the land and all its beings.
Weaving
This set of baskets woven by sisters, Dr L Burarrwanga and R Ganambarr was groundbreaking at the time of their creation (2013-4) and remain unique today in their melding of ghost net (marine debris) with classical pandanus.
Dr Laklak Barbara Burarrwaŋa and Ritjilili Ganambarr c 2018, Ghost baskets
Wuymirri songspiral
The Yirritja songspiral of Wuymirri teaches us about the strong and infinitely continuing connections that are both around us and that include us. Wuymirri is not just about a whale, Wuymirri is a story, a journey. The Wuymirri songspiral teaches Yolngu people about their connection to places, to Country.
Ms D Yunupiŋu, Lamamirri Whale 13B 2016, Etching on Hahnemuhle, 25 x 49 cm, Edition 1/20
Ms D Yunupingu sings the songspiral.
Wukun, Gathering of the clouds songspiral
Wukun is a Dhuwa songspiral and is about the gathering of the clouds. These clouds gather from all around including our homeland of Rorruwuy. This songspiral does not just sing of clouds in the sky but also people and Country coming together, just as clouds do before a storm.
Laklak #2 Ganambarr, Bol’ŋu, Etching 14/20, Clan: Dätiwuy, Gapiny group, Moeity: Dhuwa
Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs and Siena Stubbs, with Ms D Yunupingu & Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs sing the songspiral.
Guwak songspiral
Guwak is a bird, a Yirritja bird, also known as a Koel in English. She is a messenger bird. Guwak calls out in the night and travels across the land guiding spirits to the Milky Way, the spirit world. Guwak is the link between us and the River of Stars, Sky Country. This is what we call the Milky Way, Milŋiyawuy.
Songspirals: Yolŋu women sharing & nourishing milkarri is curated by Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs, Ronyiwuy Maymuru and Rosealee Pearson with the Gay’wu Group of Women and Bawaka Country, including Dr. Barbara Burarrwanga, Ritjilili Ganambarr, Banbapuy Ganambarr, Lara Daley, Sarah Wright, Kate Lloyd, and Sandie Suchet-Pearson.
The exhibition was held at the University of Newcastle Gallery in 2022 and will be traveling to additional Australian galleries in 2024.
