Peppimenarti
Words, voices and images: Connecting to cultures around the world
“A journey to the beautiful community of Peppimenarti and a visit to Durrmu Arts”.
Duration
2.52
Director
Peter and Andrea Hylands
Cinematography
Andrea Hylands
Heading out of Darwin we drive south on the Stuart Highway to the small township of Adelaide River. It is here the highway crosses the river.
It is at Adelaide River that we make a right hand turn to another world. The bush here is still largely intact. In a sparkling light, soon we are on a narrow and winding road which leads us through a landscape of small hills, each casting its shadow in contrast to the bright of the afternoon sun.
The hills with their ancientness and rock faces are covered in a myriad garden of plants, each plant casting its shadow just as they have since deep time, and since the old people first came here.
As in so many places in Australia most of the native animals have gone, something more or less recent and extinctions amplified when the Cane Toad Bufo marinus, so deadly in all its stages for the animals that try to eat it, came through this country just a few years ago. In the front line of this natural disaster are the goannas and the small mammals that were once abundant here and of great significance to the people that own this land.
We take another turn, the country feels remoter now, we see fewer cars on this stretch. Suddenly the bush to our left has gone, this is Tipperary Station, a vast ocean of cleared land among the wilderness. We see a few dozen cattle in the empty vastness as we drive by. Not soon enough the station is behind us, just another reminder of white settlement in this land.
We are in a place, the Daly River country, which most of us know very little about. Here, like so much of Arnhem Land now far to the east, is a giant wetland, its waters now receding in the cycle of the seasons. It is the receding waters that make our journey possible and to a community that is surrounded by extensive wetlands, the great floodplains of Peppimenarti, for many months each year.
The region’s Aboriginal communities and countries protected by the rising waters of the wet season, a time for wildlife. Birdlife, including the Magpie Goose Anseranas semipalmata, the stately Jabiru or Black-necked Stork Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus and the dancing Brolga Grus rubicunda, fish species including Barramundi Lates calcarifer and an endless sea of Lotus Lilies dancing in the soft wind. Here the bush and wetlands are a great garden of nature’s seasons that have sustained Aboriginal people for thousands of years.
It is here too that the great Estuarine Crocodiles Crocodylus porosuslive, once on the edge of extinction thanks to the trade in wildlife for leather begun by the missionaries and other settlers who came to these remote places, now the missionaries are mostly gone and the great crocodiles are back where they belong.
The riparian habitat that surrounds the region’s rivers and billabongs which is so important for wildlife contains numerous food plants.
Among the many plant species are Water Pandanus, various species of Paperbark, Freshwater Mangroves and Weeping Ti-trees. These are beautiful places and we keep or eyes wide open to catch the bright flash of the Azure Kingfisher Alcedo azurea as it darts for its prey below the surface of the still waters below.
The water too is full of plant life, the delicate Water Snowflake and the Lotus Lily. Many plants have leaves both above and below the surface of the water. There is Yellow Bladderwort, Azolla and Ribbonweed and many more.
After a couple of hours or so on these side roads the asphalt surface of the road turns to dirt and dusty surface, we drive more carefully now and other traffic is now few and long between.
An occasional speeding car from Wadeye flashes past in a cloud of dust. The dust settles quickly and we can see the road again. It is a joy to bein this country, the birds of prey cast their familiar shadows on the road asthey circle above us.
And so after a long day’s drive and at red sunset we arrive at Peppimenarti. As darkness falls, we unpack the gear.
The next morning we wake early and walk across to Durrmu Arts to greet the artists. Regina Wilson, community co-founder, is there to meet us. We spend the day with Regina and artists Kathleen Korda and Margaret Kundu hunting for food plants in the surrounding wetlands and now drying floodplain. We record these activities on film. A perfect day in a perfect place.
Henry tells us about the importance of art making and the employment opportunities and international friendships that art makes possible.
During 2018 our travels across the Northern Territory of Australia have been extensive and include visits to a number of Indigenous communities. When we think about the nature of Australia we have looked carefully at the ground beneath out feet.
What we see everywhere we have been which includes some of the very remotest places of Australia, and far from the cities where most non-indigenous Australians live, are the footprints of hard-hoofed animals. These are the Cattle, the Water Buffalo, the Pigs, the Horses, the Donkeys and Camels that trample and grind the delicate soils and plants and animals of this land. A mark of white settlement determined to replace the soft-footed animals of Australia including Kangaroos, so perfectly adapted to this place, with mammals from distant lands.
The extent of the damage is utterly shocking, it is everywhere. The problem is perfectly described when Peppimenarti artist Kathleen Korda finds a large cane toad resting in the very large and deep footprint of a Water Buffalo on the Peppimenarti floodplain. All around us the feral pigs have churned up the ground, floodplain resembling ploughed field. All this not only destroys the nature of Australia, but has a huge impact on the traditional food sources of Australia's Indigenous peoples.
Our warm thanks to Regina Wilson, son Henry and art centre manager Kade McDonald for their gracious invitation. Our thanks also to Margaret and Kathleen for their hospitality and friendship.
It is at Adelaide River that we make a right hand turn to another world. The bush here is still largely intact. In a sparkling light, soon we are on a narrow and winding road which leads us through a landscape of small hills, each casting its shadow in contrast to the bright of the afternoon sun.
The hills with their ancientness and rock faces are covered in a myriad garden of plants, each plant casting its shadow just as they have since deep time, and since the old people first came here.
As in so many places in Australia most of the native animals have gone, something more or less recent and extinctions amplified when the Cane Toad Bufo marinus, so deadly in all its stages for the animals that try to eat it, came through this country just a few years ago. In the front line of this natural disaster are the goannas and the small mammals that were once abundant here and of great significance to the people that own this land.
We take another turn, the country feels remoter now, we see fewer cars on this stretch. Suddenly the bush to our left has gone, this is Tipperary Station, a vast ocean of cleared land among the wilderness. We see a few dozen cattle in the empty vastness as we drive by. Not soon enough the station is behind us, just another reminder of white settlement in this land.
We are in a place, the Daly River country, which most of us know very little about. Here, like so much of Arnhem Land now far to the east, is a giant wetland, its waters now receding in the cycle of the seasons. It is the receding waters that make our journey possible and to a community that is surrounded by extensive wetlands, the great floodplains of Peppimenarti, for many months each year.
The region’s Aboriginal communities and countries protected by the rising waters of the wet season, a time for wildlife. Birdlife, including the Magpie Goose Anseranas semipalmata, the stately Jabiru or Black-necked Stork Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus and the dancing Brolga Grus rubicunda, fish species including Barramundi Lates calcarifer and an endless sea of Lotus Lilies dancing in the soft wind. Here the bush and wetlands are a great garden of nature’s seasons that have sustained Aboriginal people for thousands of years.
It is here too that the great Estuarine Crocodiles Crocodylus porosuslive, once on the edge of extinction thanks to the trade in wildlife for leather begun by the missionaries and other settlers who came to these remote places, now the missionaries are mostly gone and the great crocodiles are back where they belong.
The riparian habitat that surrounds the region’s rivers and billabongs which is so important for wildlife contains numerous food plants.
Among the many plant species are Water Pandanus, various species of Paperbark, Freshwater Mangroves and Weeping Ti-trees. These are beautiful places and we keep or eyes wide open to catch the bright flash of the Azure Kingfisher Alcedo azurea as it darts for its prey below the surface of the still waters below.
The water too is full of plant life, the delicate Water Snowflake and the Lotus Lily. Many plants have leaves both above and below the surface of the water. There is Yellow Bladderwort, Azolla and Ribbonweed and many more.
After a couple of hours or so on these side roads the asphalt surface of the road turns to dirt and dusty surface, we drive more carefully now and other traffic is now few and long between.
An occasional speeding car from Wadeye flashes past in a cloud of dust. The dust settles quickly and we can see the road again. It is a joy to bein this country, the birds of prey cast their familiar shadows on the road asthey circle above us.
And so after a long day’s drive and at red sunset we arrive at Peppimenarti. As darkness falls, we unpack the gear.
The next morning we wake early and walk across to Durrmu Arts to greet the artists. Regina Wilson, community co-founder, is there to meet us. We spend the day with Regina and artists Kathleen Korda and Margaret Kundu hunting for food plants in the surrounding wetlands and now drying floodplain. We record these activities on film. A perfect day in a perfect place.
Henry tells us about the importance of art making and the employment opportunities and international friendships that art makes possible.
During 2018 our travels across the Northern Territory of Australia have been extensive and include visits to a number of Indigenous communities. When we think about the nature of Australia we have looked carefully at the ground beneath out feet.
What we see everywhere we have been which includes some of the very remotest places of Australia, and far from the cities where most non-indigenous Australians live, are the footprints of hard-hoofed animals. These are the Cattle, the Water Buffalo, the Pigs, the Horses, the Donkeys and Camels that trample and grind the delicate soils and plants and animals of this land. A mark of white settlement determined to replace the soft-footed animals of Australia including Kangaroos, so perfectly adapted to this place, with mammals from distant lands.
The extent of the damage is utterly shocking, it is everywhere. The problem is perfectly described when Peppimenarti artist Kathleen Korda finds a large cane toad resting in the very large and deep footprint of a Water Buffalo on the Peppimenarti floodplain. All around us the feral pigs have churned up the ground, floodplain resembling ploughed field. All this not only destroys the nature of Australia, but has a huge impact on the traditional food sources of Australia's Indigenous peoples.
Our warm thanks to Regina Wilson, son Henry and art centre manager Kade McDonald for their gracious invitation. Our thanks also to Margaret and Kathleen for their hospitality and friendship.
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