{"id":4220,"date":"2013-06-25T10:33:04","date_gmt":"2013-06-25T00:33:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.idaia.com.au\/en\/?p=4220"},"modified":"2013-07-08T11:18:51","modified_gmt":"2013-07-08T01:18:51","slug":"exhibitions-lena-and-warmun-in-paris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.idaia.com.au\/en\/exhibitions-lena-and-warmun-in-paris\/","title":{"rendered":"exhibitions: Lena Nyadbi and Warmun in Paris"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Image:<\/a>

Image: Artist Lena Nyadbi at the exhibition Gija Manambarram Jimerawoon<\/i>
\u00a9 Jonathan Kimberley \u2013 Warmun Art Centre, 2013<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe soul of your people navigates from the immensity of the Kimberley to the density of Paris,\u201d H.E. Mr St\u00e9phane Romatet, Ambassador of France to Australia, insightfully declared during the inauguration ceremony of the monumental installation Dayiwul Lirlmim<\/i> by Gija artist Lena Nyadbi in Paris on 6th<\/sup> June 2013.<\/p>\n

The enlarged, stenciled reproduction of Lena\u2019s extraordinary black and white artwork, 46 times bigger than its original painted version, constitutes the \u201clast punctuation\u201d imprinted on the museum building, in the words of President of the mus\u00e9e du quai Branly St\u00e9phane Martin. Indeed, the public commission that the institution launched in 2006 permanently integrated Aboriginal Art within its very architectural structure. In so doing, it addressed an invitation to the uninitiated Western audiences to discover a millenary representational tradition from the other side of the globe, enabling the double possibility of an aesthetic encounter through contemplation, and of one\u2019s active involvement in the knowledge and understanding of the Dreaming. Committed to this reciprocal opening of cultures as well as to the circulation of their signs, Lena Nyadbi then contributed to spreading Aboriginal art by tattooing the fa\u00e7ade of the rue de l\u2019Universit\u00e9 with Jimbirla <\/i>(spearhead) and Gemerre<\/i> (scarification) motifs, which belonged to the traditional heritage of her father\u2019s country.<\/p>\n

This time, seven years after her first contribution, Lena depicted another legendary story of the Gija Country to ornate the roof terrace of the Mus\u00e9e du quai Branly: that of the Barramundi Scales <\/i>which shaped her home land in the Dreamtime. According to the legend, three women were fishing for barramundi when one fish eluded the net and escaped through a gap in the rock. It shed its scales in the process, which over time became glittering diamonds.\u00a0The traditional story of the Dayiwul Lirlmim<\/i>\u00a0is intrinsically attached to the area now known as Lissadell Station, which is home to the largest diamond mine in the world.<\/p>\n

The unveiling of Lena Nyadbi\u2019s exquisite work\u00a0on the \u201cfifth fa\u00e7ade\u201d of the Mus\u00e9e du quai Branly furthers the original dynamics along which Jean Nouvel, the architect of the museum, deliberately conceived the building. For the Mus\u00e9e du quai Branly was not intended to strictly serve as a shelter for artworks. It was designed to lead a life of its own, to become a powerful signifier and conveyer of meaning itself, through the works of Aboriginal artists. The enthusiastic response of the French audience who attended the inaugural ceremony, watched the film \u201cRooftop\u201d (about the creation of Lena Nyadbi\u2019s installation) with great emotion and delight, and warmly acclaimed the artist in a packed theatre of the Mus\u00e9e du quai Branly, testifies to the success of the project. Dayiwul Lirlmim<\/i>\u00a0\u201csimultaneously affirms specific cultural meaning [\u2026] and its universal beauty\u201d, Lee-Anne Buckskin, Chair of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board, rightly said. The Western world\u2019s growing attraction for Aboriginal Art shows the powerful resonances of the representations of the Dreaming in the contemporaneous realities of the Western world, and the importance of placing these representations at the heart of intercultural dialogue.<\/p>\n

By telling the legendary story of the Barramundi Scales<\/i> to the millions of visitors who climb up the Eiffel Tower every day, Lena enabled the mythical ancestor to travel all the way to Paris \u2013 possibly by swimming up the river Seine which runs just by the museum \u2013 and to carry on its journey with the international visitors of the Parisian emblematic monument as they bring it back to their home countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, Barramundi is everywhere,\u201d the artist concluded in the \u201cRooftop\u201d film. And in fact, the barramundi does fill the French capital with its presence: at the Mus\u00e9e du quai Branly, but also at the Australian Embassy in Paris. The exhibition Gija Manambarram Jimerrawoon (Gija Senior Law People Forever)<\/i>, currently\u00a0[1]<\/a><\/strong> held at the Embassy in response to the unveiling of Lena\u2019s installation, presents the works by eight leading contemporary Gija artists from Warmun Art Centre. Strikingly enough, the scenographic arrangement of the show is reminiscent of the Barramundi\u2019s scales: the layout is structured around regularly spaced out curved wall panels, where the artworks are hung and which remind one of the scales the Barramundi shed in its mythical flight. Let us then extend H.E. St\u00e9phane Romatet\u2019s metaphor and hope that Lena\u2019s work will keep navigating, in Paris and around the world.<\/p>\n

\n

B\u00e9n\u00e9dicte\u00a0Vachon<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Reference:<\/span>
\n[1]<\/a> <\/strong>Gija Manambarram Jimerrawoon (Gija Senior Law People Forever). <\/i>Australian Embassy in Paris \u2013 7 June-30 October 2013. A Warmun Arts Centre Exhibition, supported by the Harold Mitchell Foundation and the Australia Council for the Arts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

About the Author:<\/span>
\nB\u00e9n\u00e9dicte\u00a0Vachon, IDAIA’s Representative and Curator in France.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe soul of your people navigates from the immensity of the Kimberley to the density of Paris,\u201d H.E. Mr St\u00e9phane Romatet, Ambassador of France to Australia, insightfully declared during the inauguration ceremony of the monumental installation Dayiwul Lirlmim by Gija artist Lena Nyadbi in Paris on 6th June 2013.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[91,832,449,573,570,439,641],"class_list":["post-4220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chroniques-curatoriales","tag-91","tag-aboriginal-art","tag-contemporary-art","tag-gija-people","tag-june-2013","tag-lena-nyadbi","tag-warmun"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idaia.com.au\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idaia.com.au\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idaia.com.au\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idaia.com.au\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idaia.com.au\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4220"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.idaia.com.au\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4223,"href":"https:\/\/www.idaia.com.au\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4220\/revisions\/4223"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idaia.com.au\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idaia.com.au\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idaia.com.au\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idaia.com.au\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}