At the base of Mount Gillen, known as Alhekulyele for thousands of years to the central Arrernte people of Mparntwe (Alice Springs), a wild dog called Akngwelye fought an intruder in an epic battle watched on by his pups and their mother. The battle raged east along the ancient mountain range and through the tranquil valley, where the desert town of Alice Springs has since grown.
What might be considered folklore to many is eternally written in the western mountain range for the traditional custodians, whose once-sacred caves have been exposed to 150 years of occupation. A bitumen thoroughfare now runs below Ntaripe or Heavitree Gap, and the sacred markers – the clumps of rocks, a boulder and desolate trees – have been almost smothered, if not partially or completely destroyed by the ever-growing hub.
It is here where the Alice Springs Desert Park lies, home to the Parrtjima festival of light, now in its second year. Doris Stuart is one of the Apmereke-artweye (traditional owners) for the Mparntwe estate, and recounts a time when the air filled with a distinct scent from damp desert blossoms following the rains, where Akngwelye had marked the ground with his urine. But this week, the air is filled with beams of light instead.
The word Parrtjima (“Par-CHee-ma”) comes from the Arrernte group of languages, and suggests shedding light on a subject. But with its large-scale projections and series of art and light sculpture installations, some critics from the local arts community have noted it more closely resembles Sydney’s Vivid festival, the tourism spectacular which illuminates the Opera House and its surrounds each winter.
Parrtjima made headlines for mostly the wrong reasons when it debuted last September. Wildlife experts claimed the lasers could cause death of wallaby foetuses and joeys, leading Guardian Australia’s First Dog On The Moon to label it a “wallaby laser death festival”. Alice Springs News journalist Erwin Chlanda criticised the light show for telling the wrong story: the caterpillar or Yeperenye dreaming instead of the dog dreaming. Chlanda called it “Alice Springs Aboriginal Disneyland”. But with a commitment of at least $1m per year for another five years, the show has continued to roll on.
A series of art and sculpture installations from local Indigenous arts centres dapple the Desert Park this year, but Parrtjima’s focal point is the ranges to the east at Mount Gillen, described by the festival as “a 300 million-year-old canvas”. The six-minute projection that plays across 2km of the mountain face was developed in consultation with senior Arrernte people. Set to music on a 20-minute cycle, the festival says it tells the story of “the life of the land and its elements, reflecting their drama and inherent beauty”.
But Stuart has criticised Parrtjima for infiltrating sacred land and lore with a commercial venture, and disrespecting the central Arrernte traditional culture – criticism she also made in her initial meeting with organisers ahead of the 2016 event.
“I don’t support it, I never have,” she told Guardian Australia this week. She says consultation was rushed last year; she had told organisers the caterpillar story was wrong for the land, “but they weren’t interested. It was a done deal with the other Aboriginal people”.
Stuart said the caterpillar has a story in Alice Springs, but not at the foot of Mount Gillen. “That’s wrong, caterpillar doesn’t belong there,” she said. “That’s an ancient range, it tells the story. [The dog guards] it from both ends, from Heavitree Gap [to the south of Alice Springs] and sniffing out for intruders from the western side. We don’t even climb that hill, don’t go anywhere near it.”
For the festival’s second iteration, the state-run events company responsible, NT Major Events, have refrained from telling specific dreaming stories across the range, and have consulted more widely with local Indigenous communities. In a statement to Guardian Australia, general manager Andrew Hopper said: “We continue to listen and learn, and consultation is ongoing.”
Also this year, renowned First Nations artistic director Rhoda Roberts was brought in as curator to work closely with Indigenous artists and arts centres from across the region. There were partnerships with Aboriginal organisations, including the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association, and the festival engaged a new Parrtjima reference group representing local Aboriginal organisations, traditional owners, custodians and respected senior Arrernte people. The group, who organisers were told also had traditional rights to speak for the area, gave the green light for projections.
“It was important to have the blessings of the reference group,” Roberts says. “A number of senior people see the lights as celebratory, that the lights are celebrating and giving a story.”
Promotion of central Australian Aboriginal artists has obvious benefit for the local communities involved, and the series of installations from Bindi Mwerre Anthurre artists, the Many Hands art centre, Ikuntji Artists and Barkly Regional Arts ooze the vibrancy and vitality that comes from a deep understanding of the desert landscape. Roberts says that for some of these artists, their art is one of the only things keeping them alive.
“Half our artists are on dialysis, they could give up and they don’t,” she says. “The art gives them a healing.
“That’s the wonderful thing of being able to work with artists in that situation: to feel that they are treasured, to have an outlet where they can express themselves.
“Some sceptics don’t want this to happen and I totally understand their position and you can’t please everyone. If we’re bound to do it, we’re trying to do it the right way.”
Long-term Alice Springs resident Dan Murphy is a sculptor, who – like many non-Indigenous community-based artists in town – shares a respectful relationship with local Indigenous family groups.
“I think it’s good if they can showcase these artists, it’s great advertising for them,” he says, “but you have to be careful how to do it and when doing it on country you talk to the right people and listen to them respectfully.”
Murphy says Roberts met with “the right people” while putting the 2017 festival together, including Doris Stuart: “She got teary, hearing about how disrespected and dishonoured, sad and upset those traditional owners felt.”
But the light projection near Mount Gillen, which some traditional custodians including Stuart had objected to, remain a part of this year’s program.
Some in the Alice Springs arts community see the festival’s implementation and financial backing as a missed opportunity, Murphy says; more of a multimillion-dollar tourism marketing campaign than a genuine engagement with local Indigenous culture.
“This could’ve been such a powerful community development exercise rather than a tourism marketing exercise ... They’ve done it the wrong way,” he says. “They haven’t consulted the right people, done it respectfully. I feel like we could’ve done a really beautiful, strong thing involving the whole community.
“Rather than this random thing popping up with flashing lights all over the place, there could’ve been a whole year of involvement, sharing the proper stories with all the school kids in town. Building something from the grassroots up.”
Patricia Ansell Dodds, who has been an artist for 20 years and comes from Undoolya and Anmatyerre country, is in the Parrtjima reference group and has work featured in Parrtjima. She defends the festival and its use of the ranges near Mount Gillen. As in 2016, a portion was left untouched by the festival at the request of the reference group. But she says, Stuart has “a right to talk”.
“We’ve lost a lot of old people but when we put on the show we are advertising that we are still here, and this is still our country. It’s so important that our culture is still alive,” Dodds says.
“It’s a good thing to promote our artwork and it’s not damaging our country. We’re just advertising who we are.”
Parrtjima is still in its infancy, but the cultural dilemmas that diminish its ambition are not new for anyone who has ever been involved with First Nations cultures, arts practices and sacred land. For Stuart, the light festival is not unlike the intruding interloper in the Arrernte legend of Akngwelye, forcing itself upon the country.
“Our sites are not to be used for money-making ventures or selling advertising on our sacred sites. They should be respected,” she says. “That’s not a man-made ‘canvas’. That is our whole being tied up in that site. That has a life, blood in it from what’s around, and it is the lifeblood of my connection to country.”
• Parrtjima continues until 1 October in Alice Springs Desert Park
