We have collaborated with Scale-Free Network’s Briony Barr and Gregory Crocetti and Felicity Meakins on the Gurindji termite project. The art-science-culture project brought together Gurindji and Western knowledge about relationships between termites, Country and people.
The project produced the book ‘Tamarra: A Story of Termites on Gurindji Country’ (Hardie Grant, 2024) which won the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards for Children’s Literature and was shortlisted for the Children’s Book Council of Australia Eve Pownall Award and Wilderness Society’s Karajia Awards for Children’s Literature.
The book was inspired by a Gurindji bush medicine practice where Gurindji children are treated with heated termite mound mixed with medicinal plants to strengthen their bodies in preparation for developmental stages such as fontanelle closure, crawling and walking. Termites also play a fundamental role in the spinifex ecosystems across northern Australia. ‘Tamarra’ brings together these Gurindji and Western perspectives in a beautiful children’s book. It emerged from a series of workshops in 2021 to Gurindji school children which passed on knowledge of Gurindji uses of termite mound and scientific understandings of them.
We also produced an exhibition at CDU Arthouse Café in Darwin, an animation, and a ceramics workshop with Yasmin Smith and a filmmaking project with Elle Fredricksen, who are both long time collaborators with Karungkarni Art.