Photographers Peter Eastway, Christian Fletcher, Tony Hewitt, Les Walkling and Filmmaker Michael Fletcher return to the Pilbara with Curator William L. Fox. They are guided through Martu Country by fellow photographer and Aboriginal art specialist Tim Acker.
Journey 3
May, 22 2010
Newman
Tim Acker
Photography
Boundaries are funny things: they come in many forms - lines on a map, fences through the landscape, the water's edge in a rockpool. All of them mark something, but they only speak one language; ...
Journey 3
May, 22 2010
Newman
William L Fox
Writing
Two months later and I'm back in the Pilbara with Larry Mitchell. This time Tim Acker is our guide, a photographer and consultant in Aboriginal art to FORM. We've flown 1200 kilometres north of Per...
Journey 3
May, 22 2010
Newman
Les Walkling
Photography
Landscape as a 'way of seeing' displaces the landscape. Landscape's sensuous appeal is also an expression of authority and ownership, where myth, memory and meaning invade the landscape's material ...
Journey 3
May, 22 2010
Radio Hill, near Newman
William L Fox
Writing
Our first task upon arrival is to drive up Radio Hill with its small antennae farm and get oriented. Newman is one of the hottest towns in Australia, at time ratcheting clear up to 47ºC, but today...
Journey 3
May, 22 2010
Newman
Les Walkling
Photography
By association we inhabit the land. All that remains is a shifting ground.
Journey 3
May, 22 2010
Newman
Les Walkling
Photography
The everyday experience of landscape as a setting for life and work, and the practical uses of the physical world as nature, resource and territory, is equally (and intellectually) shaped by myths,...
Journey 3
May, 22 2010
Newman
William L Fox
Writing
In the afternoon Tim takes us over to visit Gabrielle Sullivan and her staff at the local Aboriginal art centre, Martumili Artists. Formed in late 2006, it is among the youngest of the sixty-five a...
Journey 3
May, 22 2010
Round Hill, Newman
William L Fox
Writing
That evening we drive our rented four-wheel drive vehicles to the top of Round Hill to watch the sunset. In the distance a storm brews over the mountains, the sunlight breaking through in rays duri...
Journey 3
May, 23 2010
Billanooka Station
William L Fox
Writing
On the Roads
Sunday is a travel day--but first we have to climb a hill at 5.30 am for dawn shots, this time so the guys can catch early light bouncing off the steep terraces of overburden fr...
Journey 3
May, 23 2010
Talawanna Track
Tim Acker
Photography
By late afternoon, the photographers were getting toey: the road east - the Talawanna Track - rolls through lovely desert oak and breakaway country, and the 'hero hour' for photography was approach...
Journey 3
May, 23 2010
Talawanna Track
Les Walkling
Photography
Falling in love with the great silence and grim desolation. The grandeur of the desolate sublime.
Journey 3
May, 23 2010
Talawanna Track, before the turnoff to Karlaymilyi
Christian Fletcher
Photography
Journey 3
May, 23 2010
Talawanna Track, before the turnoff to Karlaymilyi
Michael Fletcher
Film
Journey 3
May, 23 2010
Talawanna Track, before the turnoff to Karlaymilyi
William L Fox
Writing
In the afternoon we hit the one of Len Bedell's famous roads, the Talawanna Track, and head east. Bedell carved the road in 1963 with his Gunbarrel Crew, and it's a veritable highway that threads i...
Journey 3
May, 24 2010
Talawanna Track, before the turnoff to Karlaymilyi
William L Fox
Writing
Walking with Dingoes
Monday morning at 5.45, laying on my back in my swag, I watch the International Space Station soar overhead, trailed by a NASA shuttle, the two dots brilliant in the s...
Journey 3
May, 24 2010
Talawanna Track/ Karlamilyi National Park
Les Walkling
Photography
My initial impulse is the profound displacement the Pilbara locates within us. I'm also thinking of the earth as a 'reflective surface', and about artists embedded in place and space. About recipro...
Journey 3
May, 24 2010
Karlamilyi National Park
Christian Fletcher
Photography
The Karlamilyi National Park sits on the boundary between the Great Sandy and Little Sandy Deserts and if you decide to go you have to be self sufficient. There is no fuel, food or medical help ava...
Journey 3
May, 24 2010
Rudall River, Karlamilyi National Park
Tim Acker
Photography
Days two and three were spent winding our way through the central reaches of Karlamilyi - Rudall River itself: this is a desert river - an entire river system that drains a good portion of arid cou...
Journey 3
May, 24 2010
Rudall River, Karlamilyi National Park
William L Fox
Writing
The guys pick me up after an hour of walking. By now scale of the landscape is becoming more apparent to me, the riverbed I'm heading toward not much closer than it was when I started. I'm happy to...
Journey 3
May, 24 2010
Desert Queens Baths, Karlamilyi National Park
William L Fox
Writing
We turn back, re-enter the park, and head for the Desert Queen Baths, a series of permanent pools in an intimate gorge found at the end of a rough 18km track. That short distance takes us an hour t...
Journey 3
May, 24 2010
Desert Queens Baths, Karlamilyi National Park
Michael Fletcher
Film
Journey 3
May, 25 2010
Leaving Karlamilyi National Park
Christian Fletcher
Photography
We were lucky enough to have access to the Parnngurr Aboriginal community and to be able to photograph the artists and teach the local kids a thing or two about photography. It was an amazing exper...
Journey 3
May, 25 2010
Parnngurr
Tim Acker
Photography
The convoy reversed their journey, back to the Talawanna Track, before heading further east to Parnngurr. Here we met up with the Martu artists at their studio space. Thelma Judson took us out ...
Journey 3
May, 25 2010
Parnngurr
Tony Hewitt
Photography
Martumili Artists studio in Parnngurr community
Journey 3
May, 25 2010
Parnngurr
Tony Hewitt
Photography
Wokka Taylor, Parnngurr Community
Journey 3
May, 25 2010
Parnngurr
Tony Hewitt
Photography
Kumpaya Girgiba, Parnngurr community
Journey 3
May, 25 2010
Parnngurr
Tony Hewitt
Photography
Peter Yanjimi Rowlands, Parnngurr community
Journey 3
May, 25 2010
Parnngurr
William L Fox
Writing
The photographers disperse early to take advantage of the slanting light while Larry and Tim and I walk up the gorge past the first pool to the second and eventually into the fractal branching of w...
Journey 3
May, 25 2010
Parnngurr Waterhole
Peter Eastway
Photography
At Parnngurr Waterhole, outside Parnngurr Community.
Journey 3
May, 25 2010
Parnngurr Waterhole
William L Fox
Writing
Around four-thirty, an hour before sunset, we drive out to the Parnngurr Waterhole where the last group of Martu living on the land was discovered by Len Bedell while building the Talawana track. T...
Journey 3
May, 25 2010
Parnngurr Waterhole
Peter Eastway
Photography
Thelma Judson and her painting at Parnngurr Waterhole
Journey 3
May, 25 2010
Parnngurr
William L Fox
Writing
On our way back to town and just as the sun is sinking below the horizon, we stop so everyone can walk out from the vehicles to collect long stalks of grass for basket making. The sky is going all ...
Journey 3
May, 25 2010
Parnngurr
Peter Eastway
Photography
Ngamaru Bidu (front) with her painting
Journey 3
May, 26 2010
Parnngurr
Peter Eastway
Photography
Kumpaya Girgiba, from Martumili Artists, with her baskets
Journey 3
May, 26 2010
Parnngurr
Peter Eastway
Photography
Peter Yanjimi Rowlands, from Martumili Artists with his painting
Journey 3
May, 27 2010
Parnngurr Hill
William L Fox
Writing
Lines above and below ground
Early the next morning we go up Parnngurr Hill with Curtis, a novice filmmaker from town. Uranium was first discovered here by CRA (now Rio Tinto) in the 1970s. ...
Journey 3
May, 27 2010
Parnngurr Hill
Tony Hewitt
Photography
Filmmaker Curtis Taylor in Parnngurr
Journey 3
May, 27 2010
Balfour Downs/Rabbit Proof Fence
William L Fox
Writing
We leave town at 9.30, and at 12.15 we're on the Balfour Downs Road and crossing a new intersection at the Rabbit-Proof Fence, a sign nearby proclaiming it the longest fence in the world at 1837 km...
Journey 3
May, 27 2010
Talawanna Track
Les Walkling
Photography
Note to Self 31:
The Hidden Colours of the Pilbara.
The red-orange iron and sun dominate our seeing. That is, they hinder us seeing the other colours (the other things) in the Pilbara...
Journey 3
May, 28 2010
Newman
William L Fox
Writing
At the end of the trip I spend some time talking with Les about his experience working in the Pilbara, and he says: “I'm between somewhere and nowhere. I'm working consciously to eliminate the mi...