Marnpi Festival

Metronomic Whoo
by Krystle Evans

My name is Krystle Evans, I am a Barkandji artist and sometimes a writer. My work bridges traditional Aboriginal storytelling with contemporary themes by creating new otherworldly narratives depicted through both a highly feminist and deeply personal cultural lens. I am connected by bloodlines and Lands to these three: Uncle, Brother and Nephew. In each of our artistry exists a thoughtful exploration of culture, practice, craft, and storytelling. The materials, imagery, objects, patterns and stories we use are drawn from a deep connection to culture felt within our bones.

At the heart of the Marnpi Dreaming story is a tale of connection. The story follows the journey of Marnpi, a wounded bronzewing pigeon, a bird known for its mournful metronomic whoo. Many of us know Marnpi’s story. After being wounded, the bird flew across Country, its blood, excrement & feathers leaving behind sacred sites, ochre and the minerals of the land from a wound that would spill blood and gold. The quartz outcrops on the way to Broken Hill and beyond show the way the bronzewing fl ew. The Pinnacles that mark Wilyakali Country show where the bird would sit down to rest three times in a physical embodiment of cultural knowledge imprinted upon the landscape.

The story is an apotheosis of Aboriginal knowledge, predating western science. It declares an understanding of geo-heritage features in the cultural landscape, connecting Aboriginal people from different lands to form a geographical and cultural map transcendent of borders. As the Marnpi story preserves multifaceted Aboriginal cultural and geographical knowledge of Country, passed from ancestors to future generations, so too does the artwork here.

Representing three generations, Uncle Badger Bates, Anthony ‘Didge’ Hayward and Baaka Bates have come together to showcase, as Didge would say, “the importance [of] the continuation of cultural practice [as] something we feel within our bodies and bones.” We see this with Badger and Baaka who have put forward new and recent works in a special collaboration between grandfather and grandson. Both creators’ works are characterised by a strong sense of identity and close association with our land and its stories.

Young Baaka’s paintings and drawings are colourful, expressive and bold much like the little man himself. In spirited exploration of colour, line and mark making, animals and geographical features abound in joyous expression that speaks to the strength and continuation of culture from one generation to the next, and so on.

Badger’s work showcases Indigenous ways of knowing and the importance of storytelling. There is a strength and fragility to Uncle’s works depicting birds and bones wrought in materials found in the landscape. Metal vistas, bold and delicate in depiction of a river system we all know to be tenuous. Once abundant and teeming with life, now a system fractured, carcasses remind us of a river punctuated with fluctuating flows and fish deaths as art and advocacy combine. The carving - Marnpi Bronzewing Pigeon Spirit – is reminiscent of river red gums, invoking a sense of reaching, moving and stretching in natural forms. It is common of Badger’s work to incorporate that of pattern, landforms, animals and plants uniting across mediums to tell stories.

Hayward’s work blends traditional forms with contemporary materials including sandstone, tin and salvaged wood. Carvings focused on reclaiming cultural practice through craft & storytelling inhabit space in suspended, powerful tension. Covered in ochre, each piece carries a spiritual power outside the object itself. Recreated artefacts including spears, clubs and boomerangs span ancient culture and a contemporary world. Hayward’s work is a continuation and maintenance of cultural practice showcasing immemorial weapons that hark back to the past while proclaiming that we are still here and we’re still warriors.

Across both exhibitions, vessels and tools carved and molded in various woods and copper are pieces to be cradled, showing the hands of their makers. Each generation here has carved something, from teacher to student to the youngest among them picking up this ancient craft in this continuation of culture. There is deep respect in all these works, in experimenting through materials, testing skill sets and honing something we as a people have always done. The curation of the works across both sites invites audiences to think about the power that all things carry, of stories, imagery and objects, of what each means and how they connect.

For those viewing each exhibition, there lies an opportunity to understand that the meaning of each piece is deeper than the individual object. What is on display here is pride in reclaiming our power through maintaining ancient practices that speakto who we are.

Commissioned as part of Marnpi Festival 2025.

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