Thanks to Beth for keeping the news up to date in my absence. It was great to read this from the other side of the world and catch a glimpse of how the project looks from afar. It was quite a leap from Ernabella to Salzburg, not just across time zones and temperatures but into the culture of an international conference where English was the currency for trading information and ideas about creative projects and policies addressing local and global concerns.

The Salzburg Global Seminar, entitled ‘Cultural Institutions without Walls’, was essentially a think tank around questions of community engagement and cultural policy but, coming from such diverse situations, participants soon wanted to learn of the details of each others’ working praxis – the struggles and successes - and it was this which engaged and inspired me most deeply.

This is not Central Australia. View from the window, Salzburg, Austria. (click to enlarge)

On the homefront, Lorna has moved back to Alice, Mariaa is madly working on the Sydney tour and Alex is moving swiftly between program, publicity and profile requirements of the Sydney Festival while planning the 2008 touring program. It is quiet and dark in her office but for the sound of a keyboard tapping... While Belinda navigates her way around the computer, surprising us all with her growing technological prowess, for hours on end.

Dave Palmer from Murdoch University in WA, joined us upon my return, who will be evaluating Ngapartji Ngapartji over the next two years, alongside his colleague, Peter Wright. Though Dave’s role was primarily observational his input for all of us was incredibly valuable in terms of thinking about creative and consistent ways to keep abreast of the evaluative process in our work. We’ve also been recruiting for an English Literacy worker to join the project in response to requests from Anangu participants.

Melanie Gillbank, our language policy researcher based in Sydney, presented the project at the 2007 AIATSIS conference in Canberra, which had the broad theme of 'Forty Years On: Political transformation and Sustainability since the Referendum and into the Future'. Melanie spoke in the session, ‘Let their voices be heard: Australian Indigenous languages since the 1967 Referendum’. http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/data/ assets/pdf_file/8704/Session_2.pdf. And Alex has just announced that we have been invited to present at ‘Searchlight’ at the Australian Performing Arts Market in Adelaide next year.

Meanwhile Mariaa’s been organising travel and accommodation for the Sydney tour, which entails mapping pathways from Pukatja, Amata or Docker River to Alice to Sydney to the hotel and back for two community casts who will change over ‘half time’ in the season. This is to preserve everyone’s energy and ensure people are able to meet family and community commitments as well as tour with Ngapartji Ngapartji. We know it’s going to be crazy but we also think it will be fun! Can someone remind me I said that?

As we each continue to work towards what a tour demands we’ve also been keeping the space active with film animation workshops for young people which we are running with CAAMA. Last week we had a visit from some of the young women we worked with earlier in the year in Docker River who created plasticine maku and mingkiri (mouse) among other things which they were then shown how to animate with video artsworker Wiriya Sati. We also had visits from Kumana’s family late last week and Rhoda (from Pukatja) appeared on Friday much to our surprise and delight. We talked about how visitors ‘interrupt’ us and it is these ‘interruptions’ we seek to direct, guide and illuminate our work.

Dani


PS. The word on the street is that the Sydney season is selling well so buy your tickets soon!