THE BODY TIWI: Muluwurri Museum

Saturday, July 25, 2020

Muluwurri Museum

The museum will hold everything that belongs to us Tiwi and will stay here forever - it's really important that we share knowledge - for my culture, for me as an artist. I think it's really important to share.

Different artists come from different areas and land, but we all bring the one Tiwi culture to this place to keep it alive so the younger generation of our family can come to this place and see what we left.

- PEDRO WONAEMIRRI

The Muluwurri Museum was named after Muluwurri, an ancestor of the Mungatopi family and traditional owner of the Milikapiti area. It is managed by the Jilamara Executive Committee and staff. Established in 1988, the collection is held in trust for the Milikapiti community. ..... CLICK HERE TO GO TO SOURCE

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CONTEXT

In the early 1990s the University of Tasmania’s School of Art initiated an Aboriginal Artist in Residence project and was funded to host two Tiwi artists. They were from Melville Island and the relatively new art centre at Milikapiti on Melville Island, ‘Jilamara Arts and Crafts'.

The project was to produce two Pukumani poles for the university’s art collection and by example and interaction with students and the wider community generate better and more inclusive understandings of Aboriginal cultural realities. Something they delivered in spades!

The residency led to an exhibitiuon in the University Gallery entitled THE BODY TIWI that included works from the Jilamara Arts and Crafts.

It turned out that these artists presence in Launceston sparked a memory of a 1941 visit to Melville Island top a community then known as Garden Point, now known as Pirlangimpi.

Roy Pope, a Launceston resident visited Melville Is while on leave when he was stationed in Darwin with the RAAF. Coincidently he had a 35mm camera with him and as chance sometimes has it he shot several rolls of film and recorded ordinary life on the island.

Amongst his photographs there is documentation of a Pukamani ceremony. The task in hand now is to make these images more accessible made as they were in somewhat extraordinary circumstances.

Roy might well have been preceded by Baldwin Spencer in 1911/12 yet his images have a certain poignancy and they deserve more attention than they have received since coming to light a quarter of a century ago.