A collaboration among Northern Territory artists has likened the history of violent massacres in the Gulf of Carpentaria to modern-day damage wrought by lead mining, using paintings, text and photographic portraits of children and elders holding an oversized bullet.
Lead in my grandmother’s body is an exhibition from Borroloola by senior Garrwa man Jack Green, senior Garrwa-Yanyuwa woman Nancy McDinny, Garrwa-Gangalidda man Stewart Hoosan, Darwin-based artist Therese Ritchie and environmental anthropologist Seán Kerins of the Australian National University.
Their paintings are of historical events as passed down by grandparents and elders, as well as depicting daily life in Borroloola, next door to the McArthur River lead and zinc mine.
Stewart Hoosan’s painting Paul Foelsch cousin-brother to John Howard
Photographic portraits, directed by Green and other elders, are of children and themselves in ceremonial ochre, posing with the oversized bullet.
Launching the website this week, Green said they have taken their art online to give voice to Garrwa, Gudanji, Marra and Yanyuwa people’s concerns about the expansion of the controversial McArthur River lead and zinc mine, which is about 45km south-west of Borroloola in an area with dozens of sacred and significant heritage sites.
Green says the exhibition aims to draw a link between the violence of the frontier and community concerns about lead contamination of land and water.
“In the past, they’ve been coming through and shooting people with bullets and that, and like today we still holding that lead in our body,” he says.
“They’re doing other things now that are destroying us. They’re not using the bullet no more, they use other things that are happening, like mining company destroying the land, and things like that – the same as the bullets, today.”
Green says art is his way of making a political statement.
“I wanted to get my voice out because there’s a lot of political words you can use, but art is also a political word for Aboriginal people. I can get my voice across through my painting. People can see where am I coming from.”
Stewart Hoosan and Nancy McDinny, who says: ‘At Wentworth station near the Northern Territory and Queensland border there’s a place … where a lot of Garrwa people were shot. My grandmother was there, she got shot in the arm, but she escaped. The bullet stayed there, lodged in her arm. My mother and her cousin used to tell me how when they were kids they could feel the lead in her body.’ Photos: Therese Ritchie
“It’s to remind the mining company and the government that we have a knowledge and connection to the land,” Green says.
“That’s a thing we want the government to try and understand, and the mining company to try to understand: you can’t take one person out of a group and think he has authority to give authority to anyone else to destroy things.
“Under Aboriginal law we always have to sit down and talk about it first, before one person or two persons can make that agreement on behalf of a certain group.”
In late November, the Northern Territory government approved the expansion of Glencore’s lead and zinc mine at McArthur river, against the advice of its own sacred site authority, the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority (AAPA).
The territory’s resources minister, Nicole Manison, said the new mine management plan would guarantee 1,000 jobs and ensure that Glencore “can continue to operate in an environmentally safe and responsible manner”.
“Our resources industry is one of the biggest contributors to the NT economy, and our strong future in mining will play a huge role in making the territory the comeback capital of Australia,” Manison said at the time.
Water gives us life, by Jack Green.
But AAPA was concerned the amended plan includes increasing a rock waste dump to 140 metres – “higher than the Sydney Harbour Bridge”, according to the AAPA chairman, Bobby Nunggamajbarr.
He said mine operators should “properly engage with custodians about their plans to expand the mine. Juukan Gorge does not need to be repeated here in the NT.”
Glencore’s McArthur River Mine general manager, Steven Rooney, told the ABC in November that the company would comply with the Sacred Sites Act and would continue to work with the AAPA to gain permission to raise the waste rock dump height.
“We have robust internal processes in place to ensure the protection of sacred sites,” he said.
Isa McDinny, photographed by Therese Ritchie, who has been collaborating with fellow Northern Territory artist Jacky Green for the exhibition.
But Green says he would like the mine managers to have a meeting “with the right senior people of this area”.
“We’re really worried what they’re doing to the country, and we have that feeling because that land is tied to our song lines and skin lines. We belong to the land, you know.”
Nancy McDinny’s painting Jilajabar nyulili dungala yurdi jarlurna – Lead in my grandmother’s body
“When they destroy it, it makes it very hard for the younger generation to understand what used to be in that country and how you’re connected to that country.
Donald Shadforth. Photo: Therese Ritchie
“I’m trying to get people to understand,” Green says. “We’re trying to work together as one, because there are some really good people out there who support us and they have respect.
“We want to work very closely with people that are willing to sit down and talk to Aboriginal people properly. We can explain to them how important this country is and how important the trees and the water and birds and things are, you know, so we can try and protect it in future.”
