one (&) another

one (&) another presents two distinct bodies of work: a collection of brightly coloured coiled baskets by Tjanpi Desert Weavers and a series of video works by Taree Mackenzie that visually capture the interplay of colour and light. Together the works of art weave the organic and the digital, their alternating colours, material, and form drawing focus both inward and outward – to the seen and unseen dynamisms at play within objects, and in the world around us. The visual and material exchange that unfolds between the baskets and the video works, now in proximity to one another, triggers an expanded optical pattern that animates a dialogue about the interrelation between people and place, and the energy infused within objects through the process of making.

Tjanpi Desert Weavers is a social enterprise of the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women’s Council (NPYWC). The NPYWC works with over 400 women from twenty-six remote communities in the Central and Western Desert region – forty-six intricate hand-woven fibre baskets by various artists are included in the exhibition. Tjanpi weavers employ diverse approaches to their weaving practices that are inspired by seasonal change, intergenerational exchange, and contemporary life. The women go back to their homelands to gather the grasses for their fibre works, taking their children and grandchildren with them to share in the process, to pass on tradition, share stories, and connect with their Tjukurpa (ancestral knowledges). It’s a cyclic and intergenerational way of making that enacts a philosophy of obligation and reciprocity between people and place – as the Tjanpi motto reads: “Wirura pukultu tjanpiku uralpai (In harmony we go forth to harvest the grasses).”[1]

[1] Tjanpi motto, in “Tjanpi – Means Grass” in Tjanpi Desert Weavers, ed. Penny Watson (South Yarra, Vic: Macmillan Art Publishing, 2012), 89.