This painting by Rover Thomas depicts a legendary storm travelling across the landscape in the time of the artist’s ancestors.

• What do you think you might see in an exhibition with the title Big Weather?
• What does this artwork remind you of? How is it different to other landscape paintings you might have seen?
• Why might weather events and stories about the weather feature so prominently in works by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists?
• Why is weather an important topic for all of us to consider?

Connection to Country is at the heart of Indigenous culture. It is a personal relationship to the land, a birth right and responsibility to care for and respect the living and breathing landscape. Country encompasses the waterways, the plants and grasses, animals and fish, air, wind, clouds and storms. The relationship that exists between First peoples and their Country is not an ownership but a union, it connects all elements of culture with individual spirituality, language, family and law.¹

Albert Namatjira was a Western Arrernte artist. He was known for painting landscapes of his ancestral Country in the MacDonnell Ranges in Central Australia. He painted in a style influenced by traditional European landscapes using watercolours, so his artworks look different from traditional Aboriginal art.

• Look at the painting, what can you see? What does it make you think about? What does it make you wonder?
• What does this painting suggest about Albert Namatjira’s relationship with the land? Consider the colours used and style of the painting.
• Why might it be important to keep records of the natural landscape at certain times?
• How is this artwork different to Rover Thomas’ painting of his Country? How is it similar?

For the Kuninjku people of Western Arnhem Land, Ngalyod the Rainbow Serpent is an all-powerful female ancestral creator. They believe the world began when ancestral beings were born out of Ngalyod’s body and went on many journeys to create the features of the landscape. Once the ancestral beings completed their creative journeys, Ngalyod swallowed them back into the earth.² Today, they are present in sacred sites known as djang.

Ngalyod is mostly associated with water such as billabongs, rivers and waterfalls.³ She can be seen as a rainbow in the sky whenever she takes flight from her resting place deep in the waterhole. This colourful flight causes the monsoonal rains which rejuvenate the land.⁴

Kuninjku artists represent Ngalyod in lots of different ways and with different body parts depending on their personal style, family group, cultural knowledge and ancestral connection with the land. She is often depicted as a serpent with a crocodile snout, kangaroo ears, an emu chest bulge or buffalo horns.⁵

Tim Wurbilbil has painted Ngalyod on bark which has been stripped from eucalyptus trees during the wet season. The colours have been prepared by grinding the soil, rocks and clay of the land into ochre. He used a thin brush made of grass called a manyilk to paint the fine lines on the surface of Ngalyod’s skin.

• Which animal body parts can you spot in these artworks?
• How do these artworks show the importance of the land for the Kuninjku people? Consider the materials, the subject matter and their relationship with the natural world.
• Why do you think it is important that the Kuninjku people respect and protect the sacred waterholes where Ngalyod rests?

In Western Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, the wet season brings cyclical thunder and lightning storms. These atmospheric changes have a spiritual importance to Aboriginal people, connecting them to the ancestral past and informing their cultural lives.

Namarrkon is a powerful lightning spirit who creates thunder by throwing kulbburru or stone axes down onto the earth. Here, he has been painted by Kuninjku artists Mick Kubarrku and John Mawurndjul. During the season of kunumeleng (December), Namarrkon is especially busy causing the thunder and lightning of tropical storms. The lightning signals to the animals of the land that it is time for a change and tells the people hunting food that the Ngalmangiyi (turtle) and Kedjebe (snake) are moving closer to the bank and are easier to collect.⁶ Eventually, the frequent lightning storms bring on monsoon rains which come with kudjewk, or the wet season, from January to March.⁷

• Both works on this slide depict Namarrkon. How are they different from each other? What similarities do you notice?
• Describe Mick Kubarrku’s Namarrkon, the lightning spirit,1973.  What does it remind you of? Think of some words to describe it.
• What role do storms and lightning play in the life of the Kuninjku people?
• Investigate the changes to the ecology that occur because of storms in Kuninjku

Barkandji artist Nici Cumpston uses photography to document the increasingly unpredictable patterns of flooding across her Country. She enlarges and hand-colours her photographs with pencil and watercolour. The process allows Cumpston to connect with and express her reverence for Country.⁸

Her panoramic photograph shows the ghostly beauty of River Red Gums reflected in floodwater near Katarapko Creek. The creek is part of a complex system of waterways which flow through the Murray Darling Basin. Named after the Murray and the Darling river, this massive area extends from southern Queensland to South Australia. It is now home to 2.6 million people⁹ and has the most variable rainfall in Australia.¹⁰

Baaka (the Darling River) has always been a source of life for the Barkandji people:

• When full, it provides plenty of fish to eat.
• After heavy rainfall when the river floods, Baaka nourishes the plains so that food and plants may grow.
• In seasons of drought, Baaka may dry up completely.

Though droughts are part of a water cycle that the Barkandji people have witnessed for generations, Baaka has become dry for prolonged periods of time. The Barkandji have been campaigning in recent years to raise awareness about their drying river and the agricultural practices upstream which have impacted it.¹¹

• Look closely at Nici Cumpston’s artwork and consider her process. How do you think it allows her to connect with and express her reverence for the landscape?
• Why do you think it is important that Nici Cumpston photographically records the patterns of flooding across her country?
• Why is the preservation and protection of a river system like the Murray Darling Basin important for all Australians?

Fire is used by Aboriginal people across Australia as a tool for managing Country.¹² This ancient and ongoing practice of seasonal (or cultural) burning is based on specialised local knowledge and relies on a deep understanding of complex ecological systems. When managed effectively, fire promotes growth and abundance in both plant and animal species.

For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, fire is cleansing and healing for Country. However, with the spread of foreign grasses, clearing of land and warming of our planet, the potential for disastrous bush fires increases. Traditional Owners’ living knowledge of sustainable seasonal burning and land management is now more important than ever if we are to return to a balanced ecological environment. In 2020 the Victorian Government developed The Victorian Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Strategy, with the help of over 50 Traditional Owners and Aboriginal fire knowledge holders from across Victoria, to reintroduce a range of traditional land management strategies including cultural burning.¹³

Fire is sacred for the Gumatj people of North-Eastern Arnhem Land, including artist Barrupu Yunupingu who was known as the ‘fire lady’. This work represents her family’s miny’tji (sacred design), a diamond pattern which embodies gurtha (fire): the red flames, the white smoke and ash, the black charcoal and the yellow dust. Barrupu painted the fire in close-up – using asymmetrical diamonds in lots of sizes, densities and tones – to capture its unruly nature and show how important it is for the Gumatj people. The painting tells the story of Bäru, the Ancestral crocodile who brought fire from Madarrpa country to Gumatj territory where an important ceremony was being held in the Ancestral period.^{14 15}

• What are the benefits of cultural burning?
• With the increase of uncontrolled wildfires across Australia, why is it important for present day practitioners and farmers to work together with Traditional Owners to adopt land management practices?
• Describe the colours, shapes and lines used in this artwork.
• How can you tell that this artwork is a close up view? Why do you think the artist chose to paint the fire close up?
• How does this artwork show the importance of fire for the Gumatj people?

Through his large-scale charcoal drawings, Brian Martin explores the meaning of Country and how it is vital to the way we view the world. Martin’s Methexical Countryscape Wurundjeri #3, 2012, is titled Countryscape rather than landscape to emphasise that Country is a living subject as opposed to an object.¹⁶ The work is made up of 30 individual paper panels each covered with marks made using charcoal, a natural material obtained by burning wood. Each of the panels reflect textural aspects of the Country and appear abstract when viewed on their own. It is only once they are pieced together in the final work, that the figurative image of Country of the Wurundjeri (Melbourne) is revealed.

• What is the significance of the materials Brian Martin has used in Methexical Countryscape Wurundjeri #3? How do they contribute to the artwork’s meaning?
• Imagine if the artist had only chosen one individual panel for his final work instead of combining 30 together. How do you think it would be different? What impact would it have?
• How does this work compare to Nici Cumpston’s artwork? Consider aesthetic qualities and their relationship to ecological cycles.

Prior to the introduction of European farming in Australia, First Nations people maintained a balanced relationship with the land using sustainable tools and practices such as cultural burning, sowing plants, eel traps and fishing scoops.¹⁷ Fishing requires a high level of expertise, skill and deep knowledge of the environment.

Indigenous artists, Dot Peters and Yvonne Koolmatrie present their interpretations of traditional fishing tools used by their ancestors to supply food in a way that ensured sustainable management of the natural resources.

Wurundjeri artist Dot Peters from Healesville, Victoria has fond memories of sitting with her mother, sister and grandmother and learning to coil baskets in the traditional way. Today, she uses basket coiling to share her culture and knowledge with both her own people and new audiences.¹⁸ Eel Trap, 2004, is an example of the eel traps woven for generations in the South-East of Australia. They were baited and weighed down in the river with stones. Once an eel swam in it was unable to escape.

Yvonne Koolmatrie has woven Fish Scoop, 2010, out of sedge, using the Ngarrindjeri coiling technique. Women customarily used scoops to collect fish caught in nets and to entrap fish, yabbies and crayfsh in the shallows. By making such cultural objects, Koolmatrie connects with the river, her Country and her ancestors as she explains:

The material is everything to me, it’s my strength and it motivates me. Nothing’s on paper, everything I create comes from the material. I pick it up and start weaving and things begin to take shape. This skill, and the grass itself, are gifts of the old people^.19

• How do Eel trap and Fish Scoop show the importance of cultural identity for artists Dot Peters and Yvonne Koolmatrie? Consider the materials and processes used.
• How can the sharing of cultural knowledge contribute to sustainable management of natural resources?
• Research fishing tools and practices that have been introduced in Australia since European settlement. How are they different from traditional indigenous tools and practices? What impact do they have on the environment and ecological systems?

When Europeans colonised Australia, they started farming the land using industrial machinery and introduced foreign plants and animals such as cows. This changed the landscape and climate, threatening the ecological balance of the country, also disrupting traditional land management practices and food sources for First Nations people.

Michael Riley’s Untitled (cow) speaks directly to Australia’s history of settlement and the sadness and confusion that introduced animal species caused Indigenous communities, interrupting their ancient relationship with their Country. Michael Riley was a Wiradjuri/ Kamilaroi man from the Talbragar Reserve outside Dubbo, New South Wales. He said

[Cows are] a strange animal to Aboriginal people, yet it’s also an animal Aboriginal people would kill when food supplies were running out. Aboriginal people would actually be shot or hunted down for doing these things, for trying to survive, themselves.²⁰

• What do you think First Nations people thought when they first saw cows in Australia? Think of words they may have used to describe the strange new animal.
• Research the impact that the introduction of foreign animals, like cows, had on the Australian landscape.
• Look at the sky in this artwork, what does it make you think of? Consider connections to climate and the environment.
• Why do you think Michael Riley chose to depict the cow floating in the sky like this?

• Think about some of the artworks you have seen in Big Weather. Did any challenge you to see things differently? Describe how.
• Choose a work from the exhibition you found interesting. In what ways did it make you think about the environment?
• What can we learn from the messages and ideas explored in Big Weather? What has the exhibition inspired you to go and find out more about?