Image: Alyana Scales, ‘Patilpa’ (detail), 2024, acrylic on canvas, 66 x 91.5 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.
Iwiri
Iwiri Arts
15 April – 2 August 2024
This creativity that surfaces through material application is both personal and cultural in its initial approach and ongoing progression. What began as placement of a cultural oral history passed down through millennia, that artists have familial rights to depict, very much developed into a creative transcendence of inexplicable health (both mental and physical); enrichment that is visible to all. Iwiri Arts is art therapy whilst no one is looking. Magic happens as artists explore their own cultural story whilst being away from all that is familiar but finding their own identity in the very landscape they depict, exploring country and culture that holds the deepest connection.
~Brian Hallett
Iwiri is a Pitjantjatjara word for tree root. Located within the Taoundi College precinct in Port Adelaide, Iwiri Arts is both a meeting place and cultural hub, offering a professionally staffed arts studio. Iwiṟi was established by Aṉangu in 2018, many of whom had been forced to move to Adelaide due to chronic health conditions and lack of services in their home communities. Living far from traditional homelands, Anangu were concerned about cultural and social isolation. Iwiri was formed initially to help retain, promote, and transmit Anangu culture and language through the areas of arts, language, knowledge, and community. Since then, Iwiṟi has grown rapidly into an organisation that delivers a range of programs that aim to nurture, strengthen, and promote connection to key pillars of Aṉangu identity: Ngura (country/home) Tjukurpa (philosophy, Lore) Walytja (kinship and other relationships of connection) and Kurunpa (spirit/soul). As well as a focus on emotional, mental, and cultural wellbeing Iwiri strives to create economic opportunity for Anangu through employment and arts-based enterprise development.
~Iwiri
Carolyn Dunn, 'Piltati Tjukurpa' (detail), 2024, acrylic on canvas. Image courtesy of the artist
Paul Andy Tjutjuna, 'Kalaya Tjukurpa' (detail), 2023. Image courtesy of the artist
Tjulyata Tjilya, 'Ngura' (detail), 2024, acrylic on canvas. Image courtesy of the artist.
Audrey Brumby, 'Tjukula Tjuta' (detail), 2024. Image courtesy of artist.
Carolyn Dunn, 'Piltati Tjukurpa' (detail), 2024, acrylic on canvas. Image courtesy of the artist
Paul Andy Tjutjuna, 'Kalaya Tjukurpa' (detail), 2023. Image courtesy of the artist
Tjulyata Tjilya, 'Ngura' (detail), 2024, acrylic on canvas. Image courtesy of the artist.
Audrey Brumby, 'Tjukula Tjuta' (detail), 2024. Image courtesy of artist.
