Story Archive » Volume 19 » Issue 19 »

May 10, 2012

SEXUAL ASSAULT CASE, FURTHER UPDATE: Youth in court should not have been in Alice Springs at time of alleged offending.

A youth charged with unlawful use of a motor vehicle – the same stolen vehicle that was allegedly used in relation to the alleged sexual assault of two European tourists last week –  should not have been in Alice Springs.

The youth had come before Magistrate Greg Borchers in March on other matters and was ordered to live at an outstation with his grandparents, and not to leave unless he was ill, had permission of his parole officer or was in the company of those grandparents.

Today the court heard that the youth was arrested at another grandmother’s house at a town camp in Alice Springs.

Magistrate Borchers, hearing a mention of the unlawful use of a motor vehicle charge in the Youth Justice Court today, urged the police to give “serious consideration” to charging the grandmother for “complicity” in assisting the youth to breach orders of the court.

Another youth, charged with two counts of sexual intercourse without consent and two counts of deprivation of liberty as well as a string of other offences, appeared briefly before Magistrate John Birch also in the Youth Justice Court today. KIERAN FINNANE reports. FULL STORY »

Posted: May 8, 2012 – 4:57 pm ⋅ Comments (1)

Sweetness and light in council meeting as factions keep truce

Sweetness and light continued to prevail in Monday’s meeting of the town council committees, with not a hint of belligerent factionalism.

The jolly consensus allowed councillors to breeze through a big agenda probably in record time – at least so far as the meeting open to the public was concerned. Even wild man Eli Melky didn’t pick a single fight, instead – “wearing his Rotary hat” – effusively thanked the council for supporting the hugely successful Bangtail Muster parade, and the council technical staff for their efforts, well beyond their call of duty, to keep the re-opened pool running.

The councillors asked for more than is contained in a report about Port Augusta’s successful fight against anti social behaviour.

PHOTOS: Top – The town council got a gong for its assistance to the Bangtail Muster parade. Middle – the photo councillors have in

their wallets these days: Tough Port Augusta Mayor Joy Baluch. The Alice town council is taking a hard look at her grog and crime control measures. ERWIN CHLANDA reports. FULL STORY »

Posted: May 16, 2012 – 9:23 am ⋅ Comments (0)

Bangtail Muster shows Alice Springs community is vibrant and very well

Red tape may scuttle a 50 years old institution.

 

Alice Springs folk turned out in their thousands, as participants and spectators, for the annual Bangtail Muster this morning, as though to show the world that the community in the heart of Australia is alive and well.

The town once again has had devastating world wide publicity after the alleged rape of two overseas tourists, and a string of other brutal crimes.

But on this May Day holiday, blessed by the town’s trademark magnificent weather, young and old turned out to celebrate the achievements of Alice Springs – its great sporting clubs, child care, schools, music and above all, community spirit.

There was also a sprinkle of trade union members to mark Labour Day.

“Our Community” was the theme picked for this year by the organisers, the Rotary Club of Alice Springs. 40 floats were entered.

The Muster is their annual fundraiser for the local Youth Centre and is one of the Centre’s major events.

The story behind the Muster goes back to the old days when cattle production was the main industry of the Centre and stockmen would cut off the ends of the tails to record the number of cattle mustered.

Pictured is Celine Ociones, 17, carrying a statue of Santo Nino, the holy child, Little Jesus.

She leads 21 dancers and musicians from the Mabuhay Multicultiral Association which has about 60 local families as its members.

Meanwhile, the Rotary Club of Alice Springs this year ran the Bangtail Muster parade at a loss, probably the first time in its 50 year history, because of NT Government requirements for a traffic management plan and licensed staff to implement it. Story and video by ERWIN CHLANDA. FULL STORY »

Posted: May 7, 2012 – 3:35 pm ⋅ Comments (5)

Town council grapples with Falconio poster: Author hits out at Mayor Ryan

 

Posters in Alice Springs offering $40,000 for disclosure of the “whereabouts” of Peter Falconio were the subject of a curiously cautious debate during the town council committee meetings last night.

Mr Falconio disappeared near Barrow Creek in 2001 and Bradley John Murdoch is serving a 28 year sentence for his murder.
Keith Allan Noble in his book “Find! Falconio – dead or alive” claims Mr Murdoch may be innocent. Cr Eli Melky started the discussion by referring to a “recent attempt to capitalise on an unfortunate incident regarding a victim in or around Central Australia, I prefer not to mention the name” and asking council do something “if there is misleading and false advertising offering rewards” which may be in conflict of “stringent legislation”. ERWIN CHLANDA reports.

 

UPDATE May 17, 2012 07:30am: Meanwhile the author of the poster, and a book about the case, Keith Noble, has described remarks by Mayor Damien Ryan as “rubbish”.
Dr Noble, who gives his address at a location in inner city Vienna, Austria, says in a letter to the Mayor: “No doubt you are critical of those residents for posting the posters in Alice Springs.
“Your ill-conceived remarks surfaced on an English newspaper website” quoting Mr Ryan as saying that Dr Noble’s reward offer was a “cheap stunt”.
He says: “Yes, it is only A$40,000 (£25,000) but people have spoken to me about contributing more so the reward can be increased.
“But I think that your remark really relates to your inaccurate belief that the poster is part of a book promotion effort.” FULL STORY »

Posted: May 15, 2012 – 7:21 am ⋅ Comments (20)

Salvos find not just the usual suspects are in trouble

Falling on hard times in Alice Springs these days isn’t exclusive to the usual suspects: a pregnancy or an accident can turn a two-income family into a single income one, and the town’s exorbitant rents can tip that family into crisis.

“The poor can’t buy a house here.
“It doesn’t take much for repayments becoming too hard, or heating and power bills,” says Captain Michael Johnson who with his wife Elizabeth, also a captain in the Salvation Army, heads up that stalwart aid organisation in The Centre.
They’re gearing up for their annual doorknock on May 19 and 20, and are still looking for volunteers (call them on 8951 0200).
The Salvos in Alice will be spending more than $1m this year, as usual “way more”  than the doorknock yields, says Capt Johnson.
The local Salvos run two men’s hostels which are “pretty well always full”. ERWIN CHLANDA reports. Photo: Captains Michael and Elizabeth Johnson in the Salvos’ Thrift Shop. FULL STORY »

Posted: May 8, 2012 – 6:21 pm ⋅ Comments (1)

Courtroom Two: the day after the long weekend before

It was apparently a normal day after the weekend before at the Alice Springs Magistrates Court, perhaps a little busier given that this was a long weekend. The word was also that there had been a recent royalty payment that had brought people into town.

The police prosecutor arrived in Courtroom Two with a trolley as big as a baby buggy, full of files. These were the fresh matters. The files in the stands on bar table were the matters already scheduled (13 domestic violence, two Smart Court, 59 criminal, and 11 Youth Court).

Half of the defendants were in the watchhouse, Magistrate John Birch was told. Only one lawyer is  allowed in at a time, so there was a bottleneck with the paperwork.  That was hardly surprising, said Magistrate Birch, given that there were 150 people on the list!

Defence lawyers, from Legal Aid and Aboriginal Legal Aid, milled around, attempting to bring matters on.

There was confusion over files. The court orderly was sent in search of other defence lawyers, returning to report that she couldn’t find them. She also had to announce numerous non-appearances. Some of these matters were dealt with anyway (“ex parte”), the offenders convicted and fined, their files put away. Many matters were adjourned to allow time for defence lawyers to make representations to police prosecutions; others because the facts of the matter were to be contested.

In the midst of all this, some parties appeared and matters were heard – sorry tales that flesh out some of the offending behind the ‘law and order’ debate, tales of people, young and not so young, male and female, and their failings. On this day and for as much of the list as I observed all of the defendants were Aboriginal. This is not always the case. KIERAN FINNANE reports. FULL STORY »

Posted: May 9, 2012 – 6:23 am ⋅ Comments (0)

Namatjira: for the man and now the project art was a catalyst for change

 

Behind the sell-out theatrical tour of Namatjira, which has its final Australian performances in Hermannsburg and Alice Springs this week, is a three-year project for social change through art. Longer than that if the start is counted from Big hART’s Ngapartji Ngapartji project. I ask Scott Rankin, Big hART’s director, how he thinks the company’s involvement with people in The Centre has contributed to social change over this time.

Complex problems require solutions on many levels, he replies. The social change debate is mostly focussed on “quick fixes” to force change through action that is mostly “siloed” into a single government portfolio.

Big hART’s approach is to work at the grassroots level, with individuals. What is required from community and government is to support those individuals – he calls them “entrepreneurs” – who are effecting change in their lives, going beyond the usual “soft Left versus hard Right” adversarial approaches to the issues.

Art and culture are used as catalysts and perhaps never more pertinently than in the Namatjiira Project  which has at its heart an emblematic story of a man effecting radical change, through art, in his life, the lives of those around him and indeed the cultural and social life of the nation.

Namatjira, the theatre production, is in its own way an emblematic story, as the most successful current touring production in Australia. It shows, says Rankin, that good art, attracting widespread attention and acclaim in the country’s big cities, can come out of remote Central Australia. KIERAN FINNANE reports. 

 

PHOTO: Hamming it up big time – in the 2010 Alice showing of the work-in-progress Derek Lynch as the Queen (left) and Trevor Jamieson. FULL STORY »

Posted: May 16, 2012 – 1:33 pm ⋅ Comments (0)

A car wreck’s tale of bureaucratic incompetence

 

Does anyone know the meaning of “common sense”?
The reason for this query is due to a rather odd situation that has developed – still ongoing – in a parking bay adjacent to the L’il Antz childcare centre at the corner of Undoolya Road and Sturt Terrace; and which is also just down the laneway from where I live.
It transpires that late on Thursday, May 3, a police patrol pulled over an unroadworthy vehicle driving south along Sturt Terrace. There’s no dispute on this point, as the offending vehicle is in an appalling state and clearly unfit to be driven on the streets.
Unfortunately it was pulled up in the parking bay next to L’il Antz, where many parents drop off and collect their children each working day.
Initially that might not have been too much of a problem if, say, the offending car was parked there for a day while arrangements were made to tow it away. But that’s only the start of the story told by ALEX NELSON. FULL STORY »

Posted: May 13, 2012 – 1:54 pm ⋅ Comments (6)

Grog stats may be useless as they do not include online and mail orders

The volatile debate on alcohol reform turns largely on the volume of consumption and how various measures affect it.

Trouble is, the stats are seen to present an incomplete picture as they do not capture the apparently growing online and mail-order purchases that come to the consumer direct from interstate.
Said Deputy Mayor Brendan Heenan during the recent local government election campaign: “There are statistics that less alcohol is being sold now. I don’t believe them. Go to the post office and watch how much alcohol comes in, pallets and pallets of mail orders from south now, tonnes of the stuff, every day.”

The Alice Springs News Online requested information from the NT Justice Department at about noon yesterday. It has not yet been provided. When it comes to hand we will update this report.
Blair McFarland, manager of CAYLUS (Central Australian Youth Link Up Service) which campaigns strongly on substance abuse issues , says so far as he knows, figures about alcohol obtained from interstate by mail order and online are not included in the NT consumption statistics, which – again, so far as he knows – represent wholesale trade in the NT.
Mr McFarland says, relying on figures interstate, the online and mail order proportion is around one percent of the total.
Prominent alcohol activist and medical doctor, John Boffa says: “The short answer is that only some of the sales are included when the wine company or other company is registered in the NT.
“[The government does] not have a way of monitoring all of the internet sales.” ERWIN CHLANDA reports. PHOTO: The yard of the Alice Springs post office which, some claim, transports large quantities of alcohol not accounted for in NT consumption statistics.

 

UPDATE May 10, 12:40pm: The NT Department of Justice has now provided a partial response to questions we asked yesterday.

They were: Does the department have figures of alcohol obtained via mail order or online, and delivered via Post Australia?
If you do please supply them to me.
Are mail order or online purchases of alcohol from interstate and delivered to the buyer direct captured in the NTG stats made public?
Answer: DoJ is aware of small amounts of alcohol being purchased over the Internet.  These amounts are insignificant in comparison to the 2.73 million litres of pure alcohol sold in 2010.

Online retailers can use the Banned Drinkers Register (BRD) online and since its launch on 26 March, three interstate licensees have adopted the system with the first sale recorded on 8 May 2012.

Follow-up questions to the department: That clearly means that the government does not know the quantities and they are not reflected in the NT alcohol statistics; is that so? How many mail order and online retailers from interstate are supplying the NT?

 

UPDATE May 10, 4:20pm:

The department replies: Whilst we don’t know specific quantities, from discussions with cartage agents, especially in Alice Springs, quality bottled wine is being purchased in very low quantities in comparison to what is sold in the Territory.
The majority of online liquor sellers don’t sell into the NT.  Coles and Woolworths despatch their online liquor sale products from the NT and so already use the BDR. In developing the BDR online, we wrote to 10 organisations that offer online liquor sales into the Territory – including Coles and Woolworths, letting them know that the BDR was available online. FULL STORY »

Posted: May 10, 2012 – 10:50 am ⋅ Comments (24)

Juvenile in court on two charges of sexual intercourse without consent

A youth was charged in Alice Springs Youth Justice Court this morning with two counts of sexual intercourse without consent.
He was remanded in detention and the matter was adjourned to July 2.
The police prosecutor stated about 24 further charges would be laid and applied for an extended brief, which was granted.
The defence lawyer made application to close the court, which the prosecutor said he would not oppose. Magistrate David Bamber heard the application in closed court but ruled against it.
However he suppressed the youth’s name and all details tending to identify him, due to his age and the nature of some of the offences.
The youth’s father was  in court. The youth looked across at him a couple of times but otherwise kept his eyes on the floor.
Other charges against him include aggravated entering a dwelling with the intent to commit an offence, two counts of stealing, aggravated unlawful use of a motor vehicle, damage to property, aggravated robbery and two counts of deprive a person of personal liberty. KIERAN FINNANE reports.

 

Pictured: The Youth Justice Court (formerly the site of a pizzeria). FULL STORY »

Posted: May 4, 2012 – 12:18 pm ⋅ Comments (0)

What future for the Aboriginal art economy?

In the global economic downturn all artists are doing it tough. How will the Aboriginal art industry ride it out? A CRC project will attempt to come up with some answers.

 

In any picture of the Aboriginal economy, especially on remote communities, the art industry would have to be seen as the shining light, for the way that it has engaged large numbers of people, bringing them purpose, cultural prestige, income and opportunity.  So why is it, in particular, the subject of a seven year research project by the CRC for Remote Economic Participation?

It’s not the only focus for the CRC of course – there are 12 research areas all up – but Aboriginal Art Economies is a flagship project with a $1.5m budget and will run for the entire seven years of the CRC’s life, with the final years devoted to “rolling-out” the research findings in practical ways.

Perth-based research leader Tim Acker has hands-on experience of the industry stretching back 15 years. He was for instance a manager of the famous Warlayirti Artists in Balgo, WA and more recently was one of the co-founders of the Canning Stock Route Project.

Mr Acker acknowledges that the Aboriginal art industry is the “single most obvious and long-term success story to come out of remote Aboriginal Australia”, but he says it is still “characterised at pretty much every point by some form of fragility”: ”The way art is produced, the community circumstances, the art centres, the connections between artists and galleries, the GFC and the overall downturn in the art market in the last few years, all those things have put into sharp relief that there is nothing fixed about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art sector.”

And some of fragility has come about because the industry it has been “too successful”, he says. For example, there are issues of over-supply and in this regard, the marketing of art on the internet has been a double-edged sword. KIERAN FINNANE reports.

 

Pictured above: Nancy Nyanyarna Jackson working on her painting in the Warakurna Artists studio. Photo by Rhett Hammerton FULL STORY »

Posted: May 10, 2012 – 12:31 pm ⋅ Comments (0)

Female tourists sleeping in car alleged to have been sexually assaulted: all three suspects now charged, rifle still not recovered.

UPDATE Saturday, May 5, 3.05pm: Detectives in Alice Springs have this morning laid charges against two 17 year-old youths who Police believe were involved in the alleged sexual assault of two tourists in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Detective Acting Superintendent Travis Wurst said one of the youths has been charged with Sexual Intercourse Without Consent, Acts of Gross Indecency, Deprivation of Liberty, Assault and Threaten with a Firearm along with numerous other offences: “The other youth has at this stage only been charged with the Unlawful Use of a Motor Vehicle (similar to the one pictured) in relation to the alleged sexual assault but we hope to lay further charges as the investigation continues.”
A/Supt Wurst said the firearm allegedly used in the incident has not yet been found.

 

UPDATE Friday, May 4, 6.50pm: Alice Springs Police have located a green Toyota Ascent (similar to pictured) allegedly stolen and used during a sexual assault in Alice Springs on Wednesday.
Detective Acting Superintendent Travis Wurst said the vehicle was found in Ntaria [Hermannsburg], about 130 kilometres south west of Alice Springs.
Police believe the weapon used during the alleged sexual assault was also used in an attempted armed robbery of a taxi early on the same morning.
“The three 17 year olds arrested for the sexual assault are also believed to be involved in this crime.
“A firearm was used to threaten the driver and occupants of the taxi before the offenders fled. Nothing was stolen from the taxi.
“There were three passengers in the taxi who Police would now like to come forward.”  FULL STORY »

Posted: May 2, 2012 – 2:37 pm ⋅ Comments (40)

What’s your poison?

Some people in this town seem to be on a permanent quest to find new ways to hurt themselves.

As sniffable fuel and paints have been made harder to come by, anti-perspirant sprays seem to be the latest craze.

I collected these cans in the laneway at the rear of my home in the Old Eastside, in the space of a few days during last week.

The back row of spray cans appeared in just one day, and I came across a young Aboriginal girl sitting by the fence as she was sniffing the last one.

She didn’t seem to be affected much but perhaps she hadn’t been alone sniffing all of them.
The remainder I collected over the next three days. The small “Playboy” spray can and the cut-off VB can I picked up in the Todd River. This ties in with Blair McFarland’s alert over this issue last week when about 100 of these spray cans were picked up, mainly in the vicinity of K-Mart.

This sniffing outbreak seems to be over, I’ve not come across any more spray cans this week. ALEX NELSON reports. FULL STORY »

Posted: May 9, 2012 – 2:40 pm ⋅ Comments (2)

Alice Springs News Online: your marketplace for opinions

RECENT REPORTS ATTRACTING THE HIGHEST NUMBER OF READERS’ COMMENTS

Grog mayhem is exhausting Alice Springs. NEW LETTER TO THE EDITOR.

Power struggle on Town Council: a sign of things to come? (46 comments)
Female tourists sleeping in car alleged to have been sexually assaulted. (40 comments)
Grog stats may be useless as they do not include online and mail orders. (15 comments)
Kids enemy No 1 in law & order debate – or the main victims? (11 comments)
Grog, residential land, law & order: More power to Alice under Country Liberals, says Terry Mills. (11 comments)
Also, look for your favourite topics, writers and comment providers by entering their names into the search box under the masthead. With commentators use both names between inverted commas (e.g. “Fred Nurk”). Note to those correspondents who only provide a pseudonym or their first name: Google might ignore you, or rank you low. Our story archive, instantly accessible right around the world, contains some five million words and stretches back to 1997.
 FULL STORY »

Posted: May 12, 2012 – 11:21 am ⋅ Comments (0)

Chamber flicks arts & cultural centre project to underachiever Tourism NT

A committee of the Alice Springs Chamber of Commerce has hand balled the proposal for a national indigenous art and culture center to Tourism NT, which appears to have put it on the back burner.

Liz Martin, who runs the highly successful National Road Transport Hall of Fame in Alice Sprigs, says the town may lose a major opportunity to Queensland where she understands a similar project is being mooted, apparently assisted by major mining interests.
“We should grab it by the horns and run with it,” says Cr Martin who serves on the town council’s Tourism, Events and Promotion Committee and was its chair person for the last three years of the 11th Council.
Says Tourism NT CEO John Fitzgerald: “Tourism NT has not taken over planning of the proposed centre.”

Pictured: The sensational Canning Stockroute exhibition which enthralled visitors in Canberra and Sydney and indicated what a major national indigenous museum could be like, and what it could do for Alice. Photo by Tim Acker, Canning Stock Route Project.  ERWIN CHLANDA reports. FULL STORY »

Posted: May 3, 2012 – 1:16 pm ⋅ Comments (4)

Old Hartley Street School looking safe for next decade

A compromise may have been reached that will help the National Trust keep the Hartley Street School – one of the few heritage buildings in the Alice CBD –  open to the public as a museum.

Following a deputation to the Town Council on Monday night by members of the local McDouall Stuart Branch, an offer has been made on the future leasing arrangements of the building, owned by council and leased to the National Trust for a peppercorn rent for the last 24 years.

The lease expires on July 31 this year. Critical to the negotiations it seems is the income the trust is able to generate from two tenancies in the building, some $36,000 a year when both are let (there is one vacancy at the moment).

The trust was hoping for a new lease for 10 + 10 years over the whole building, and to retain the sub-lease income.

Committee and branch members turned up in good number of Monday night, with chairman Stuart Traynor and long-time committee member Dave Leonard articulately putting their case.

Questions from councillors concerned what the tenancy income was spent on and whether it was spent in Alice Springs (Deputy Mayor Brendan Heenan), the condition of the building (Crs Heenan and Geoff Booth) and the long-term sustainability of the volunteer effort (Cr Eli Melky).

This last was a “very tough question”, acknowledged Mr Traynor, the “Achilles heel for heritage conservation”.

Cr Melky also wanted to know what the branch would do if they didn’t get the tenancy income: would they accept a 10 plus 10 year lease without it? KIERAN FINNANE reports. 

 

Pictured, above: Dave Leonard (left) and Stuart Traynor in the Hartley Street School museum, kept open by volunteers six days a week. • Left: From the street the museum gives an idea of what the mid-20th century Alice looked like. FULL STORY »

Posted: May 3, 2012 – 10:48 am ⋅ Comments (0)

Three day trek on foot to reach art centre: revise your definition of ‘remote’!

We’re used to the word ‘remote’ in Central Australia but try this for size: to reach the string of five art centres that make up Omie Artists you must trek by foot for up to three days, often (for seven months of the year and then some) in torrential rain, across flooding rivers, clambering up muddy mountain sides and slithering down again. The company’s valiant manager, Brennan King, with six Omie security guards, necessary to protect him from attack by ‘rascals’ from the neighbouring tribe, make this journey several times a year. The artists’ work – among the last traditional barkcloths being produced in the world – has to be brought out the same way, rolled over PVC pipes and hoisted on the shoulders of the art centre coordinators.

How remarkable then for these works, steeped in the law and lore of the Omie tribe of Papua New Guinea and many of them a tour de force of design brilliance, to arrive on our doorstep here in the dry centre of Australia and to resonate so strongly with us.

This experience we owe to, apart from Omie Artists, RAFT Artspace in Alice Springs. Its curator Dallas Gold wants to take the pulse of contemporary art in our region (in its expanded definition) and give us a sense of its dynamism, diversity, achievement and promise. This is the third exciting show in a row at RAFT, each stop opening up a window onto a world rich with beauty, ideas, observation and spirit.

The Omie are few in number, King says about 1800 according to a census done by the Omie themselves in 2009.  Around 70 artists are producing barkcloths. KIERAN FINNANE reports.

 


 Pictured, above left:  Omie dance a welcome celebration for Brennan King’s arrival at their newest art centre in January 2010. • Above: Pig tusks and teeth, and fern leaves by Linda-Grace Savari. Photos courtesy Omie Artists. FULL STORY »

Posted: May 1, 2012 – 11:14 am ⋅ Comments (0)

Last of the nomads wins prize with ‘sublime’ 21st Century painting

UPDATE, May 19, 2012: Alice Prize: a journey through art of ‘the time we are in‘

Go to FULL STORY for Kieran Finnane’s walk through the art with the Alice Prize judge.

 

The Pintupi artist Yukultji Napangarti – one of the so called Lost Tribe of nine people whose first contact with the outside world was in 1984 – has won the Alice Prize with a hypnotic untitled work that “elevates paint on a surface to something sublime”.

So said judge of the prize, Nick Mitzevitch, Director of the Art Gallery of South Australia.

“To me that’s what great painting is all about,” he said.

This is the 37th Alice Prize, one of Australia’s oldest contemporary art prizes, open to artists from around the country. Presented by the Alice Springs Art Foundation it opened tonight at Araluen and will be on display till June 10.

Mr Mitzevitch regarded Napangarti’s painting as “by far the most sophisticated and superior work in the exhibition”, and this despite the standard of the prize, and painting in particular, being “generally high”.

He said the work “sums up what landscape painting is really about in the 21st century”, even though it draws on thousands of years of Indigenous tradition.

Yukultji Napangarti and her family occupy a special place in Australian history, being the last known nomadic people to ‘come in’ from the desert, making contact with other Pintupi people in the tiny settlement of Kiwirrkurra in Western Australia in 1984. Her three brothers have also gained recognition as artists.

KIERAN FINNANE reports.

 

Pictured, top: Yukultji Napangarti. Photo courtesy Papunya Tula Artists. At right: The winning work (detail). The artist’s statement says the lines represent the sandhills surrounding the waterhole and soakage site known as Yunala, as well as the tubers of the silky pear vine, also known as yunala.  FULL STORY »

Posted: May 11, 2012 – 9:06 pm ⋅ Comments (1)

The perspective of one year

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This coming Saturday marks exactly one year since I arrived in Alice Springs. I rolled into town in the morning and in the afternoon headed out to Ross River for the Wide Open Space festival.

I remember feeling rather overwhelmed by the colourful crowds after a solid six months at a rather remote truck stop further up the track. In the end I met a couple of amazing women and the journey that this last year has been was off! I’m happy to be marking the anniversary by being a part of the festival. This time I’m operating a coffee cart and the buzz and frenzy of last minute organistion is setting in, with lists that seem to get longer the faster I tick things off!

It’s recently been a pleasure to watch Alice Springs ‘warming up’ in this cooler weather with the arrival of visitors and Wide Open Space festival-goers. I’ve noticed the town’s benches are now rarely empty, often occupied by visitors having a snack, a chat or a coffee. I looked down the mall the other day and saw in the bright light quite a number of people wandering around, looking to check out the sights. More than a couple of times I’ve been waved down by a map and with gestures and finger-pointing sent people off in the right direction, I think! FULL STORY »

Posted: May 3, 2012 – 10:56 am ⋅ Comments (0)

Alice Prize: unpackers pick their winner

What work among the 65 Alice Prize finalists caught the unpackers’ eye? Now we have the answer.

It’s Train, a digital archival print (pictured above), 1.7m wide, by Bronek Kozka from Victoria.

Announcing the unpackers’ choice, a first for the prize, the Alice Springs Art Foundation says this artwork “requires close examination to fully engage with the clever imagery it contains”.

They quote from the artist’s statement:  “. . . this image uses portraiture as a window to examine the aesthetics, the technologies and the people of the future.”

The exhibition opens at Araluen next Friday, May 11. FULL STORY »

Posted: May 4, 2012 – 3:09 pm ⋅ Comments (0)