Weaving the Warakurna (Woomera) story

by Joan Williams

Weaving bush baskets from the material around them, the women of Warakurna 
and Tjukuria are telling stories about their land. In an exhibition of 
their work at the Fremantle Arts Centre, wonderful baskets, hung invisibly 
from the ceiling, seem to float above the rose pink lacquered floor.

In the 1950s during the "Blue Streak" rocket development in Woomera, SA, 
desert people were relocated to Warburton, Jigalong and Papunya in WA. They 
were compulsorily moved to protect them from possible death or injury from 
rocket debris that fell over vast areas of Central Australia during the 
test period.

In 1970, after the closure of the Woomera Rocket Range, people began to 
move back to Warakurna, where the Giles weather station had been located to 
assist the rocket program.

Now an outstation movement has begun and people are moving back to 
traditional lands around the Warakurna area.

Basket weaving is relatively new to Central Desert people, although the 
women have always made three main items from fibre — hair rings for 
carrying loads, shoes from bark and feathers and hair string skirts.

The Ngaanyatjarra communities started weaving in 1995 with ATSIC funded 
training program. Several workshops with professional, traditional and 
contemporary artists and renowned basket weavers introduced new forms and 
decorative techniques.

Within a short time, countless baskets were woven and sold, creating a new 
and innovative market for Aboriginal art. Soon the women were teaching 
these new skills to nearby Pitjantjarra and Pintubi communities.

A combined Women's Council supported the Central Desert women in achieving 
milestone changes within their communities and helped with administration 
and resources needed for a new craft.

The baskets are made from bark and feathers, wool, string, and strips from 
ingeniously recycled fabric and wire.

The Central Desert lands flow with a sea of grasses; while collecting it, 
women also hunt and gather food, teach their children and sing.

Each basket takes two to four days to make. Sometimes needles are from 
tinned meat keys, decorations from seeds and gumnuts, brilliant strips of 
fabric add a contemporary touch.

They reflect individuality in form and materials because they are not bound 
by a tradition or specific function or design. They reflect their maker's 
commitment, enthusiasm, resourcefulness and the spirit that always 
accompanies a new discovery.

The Tjukurla Story is different from the Woomera rocket dispersion, but the 
art work of the women is similarly bound up with their affinity to 
"country". They do not see themselves as separate from the earth. They 
reach across State boundaries — WA, NT and SA.

Tjukurla is named after three natural rockholes that make this place scared 
to the Wangkara people. It is a small community 400km west of Uluru and 
1800kms north west of Kalgoorlie.

Sent into other established communities by settlement missionaries, they 
regrouped to return to their birthplace only 14 years ago.

Funded by ATSIC, the Women's Centre was built seven years ago, periodically 
opened and used by the women when artworkers came from Perth. It has grown 
into a strong focal point for the community.

The production of art and craft is a way they have found to make themselves 
more financially independent. Marketing and exposure through exhibitions, 
which enable the sale of their work, has given them confidence and 
understanding of the place and value of their culture within contemporary 
society. (The baskets range in price from $45 to $180).

Renita Glenross, who curated the Fremantle exhibition, says the basket 
weaving project is a marriage of the traditional and contemporary, created 
by the personal, humourous, accidental, political, spiritual and economic 
forces that interact in modern desert life.