ingkwepeye
On the way to the WTS studio I walk along the Todd river where there are many trees hollowed out by termites. The insects leave behind enough tree to ensure it can keep growing; most of the larger gums have been hollowed out and subsequently grown into incredible forms. Oddly a gum just outside the Todd tavern had a termite mound smashed off the base. Arrernte land has been very rich in termite activity so far. Last Friday I learned some local words for termites from Veronica Dobson, an Arrernte woman, at the rangelands seminar… ingkwepeye for termite mound.
At the residency I’ve been editing on a video for an upcoming group show at the Northern Centre for Contemporary Art (NCCA), curated by Darwin-based curator Carmen Ansaldo. The exhibition includes work by NT artists, both Aboriginal and Balanda.
The video work I’m creating for the show includes termites that I have been filming for years who live underground on my family’s block in the rural district of Humpty Doo. I feed them books, make videos of them, and collect the remains of the book they leave behind. I developed some new techniques in the recently for videoing them in macro, making the termites supersized.
Termites has been a bit of a theme of my last month of travel too. It seems there is a human nest of termite lovers emerging from the red dirt of the NT. At Kalkaringi, I met Gregory Crocetti, who is working on a book with the Gurinji people about termites/Tamarra in their language. When I turned up in Alice, Levi Mclean (from Tennant Creek) said ‘you have to meet my friend Mattie’. Mattie is doing their honours degree on the pavement termites common out this way on Arrernte land, looking at the hydrology. On Friday I went to the Rangelands seminar at CDU where I heard about ‘Desert people, desert art and spinifex termite ecosystems’ from a multidisciplinary team, Veronica Dobson, Dr. Fiona Walsh, Sally Mumford, Matilda Nelson (Mattie). If you love termites too, drop by and see me at Watch This Space.
https://www.nccart.com.au/2022-exhibitions/retribution%3A-what-happens-next%3F
