In the Arrernte language, Parrtjima translates as “lighting up”. There is the physical lighting up of an object, but also the lighting up of understanding.
Now a new light festival, launched last weekend, hopes to illuminate both an expanse of the Northern Territory and Aboriginal culture. Parrtjima: A Festival in Light is billed as the world’s first Indigenous festival of light as well as Australia’s largest light installation – but it hasn’t come without controversy.
The free 10-day event, which runs until 2 October, spans 2.5 kilometres of the towering MacDonnell Ranges. On Friday evening local families and tourists, bused in from Alice Springs, milled around as crisscross lights and laser beams, fading from glittering green to brilliant white, flashed against an inky black sky.
The $2m festival, funded by the NT government, showcases “the oldest continuous culture on earth through the newest technology on a 300-million-year-old natural canvas”, according to its official website. To that end, 130 ColorReach lights and moving 25 AquaBeam lenses have been employed. An interactive booth allows visitors to create their own patterns against the mountain ranges.
The sheer scale of the display is a technical challenge. But artistic director Giles Westley, of Sydney-based AGB Events, says the lack of light pollution and the darkness of central Australia “really lets us do new things. The lighting technicians are in ecstasy.”
The program includes a three-minute sound and light show, Range of Expression, repeated every 20 minutes, which mimics the cycle of dawn to dusk. There is the crackling heat of the midday sun, the pummel of rain, the clap of lighting and the quiet of a new dawn. It is an ode to the famous sudden storms of the region “that come through like a freight train,” says Westley. “It’s about the power of the landscape and the power of the weather.”
Six artworks by local Indigenous artists are also projected onto the red sand in Grounded, one of three displays. Nearby, five oversized 1950s-style skirts, lit up from below, are printed with circular watercolour landscapes by artists from the Aboriginal-owned Iltja Ntjarra/Many Hands arts centre in Alice Springs.
Between these two pieces, giant illuminated blow-up caterpillars sit on the path, illustrated with drawings from local Amoonguna school children that tell the creation story of the MacDonnell Ranges.
For Indigenous artist Myra Ah Chee, the festival is a chance to show off her art to a larger audience while staying true to its essence. “My work depicts light,” she says. “Sunrise, sunset, sparkles of sun on water, sunlight, moonlight.”
Iris Bendor, manager of the Many Hands arts centre, hopes that the festival will promote Indigenous art, a key source of income in the area, by attracting more visitors from interstate and abroad.
“We are a very under-resourced arts centre and we feel this tradition is really important for the story of Australia,” says Bendor. “A lot of people live in poverty yet they are excellent artists with work in public galleries, but they still don’t have their own houses, own land and still have a lot of struggles.”
Tom Falzon, director of the Alice Springs Earth Sanctuary World Nature Centre, is likewise happy to see an initiative aimed at bringing in tourists. “In times of serious climate change we need to be bold in getting people to these natural centres,” he insists.
Yet the festival has garnered controversy. Located within the Alice Springs Desert Park, some wildlife experts are concerned that the lasers could cause the black-footed rock wallaby, listed as “vulnerable” under federal law, to abort foetuses and eject joeys.
Zoologist and wildlife guide Mark Carter has started a campaign on Change.org to cancel the event, garnering more than 2,460 signatures so far. “This animal has one of its last strongholds in the MacDonnell Ranges,” he says.
“During the event, animals present will have high-intensity industrial lights and lasers projected directly at them … When stressed it is well known from many studies both in captivity and the wild that macropods females are prone to ejecting their dependent joeys from their pouches.”
Andrew Hopper, general manager of Northern Territory Major Events Company, has said wildlife scientists from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources advised there was little risk to the wallabies. “A very small proportion of their habitat will be potentially disturbed for a limited period of time,” he said.
But still more have criticised the cultural implications of the festival.
“Is what nature provides not good enough?” writes journalist Erwin Chlanda on Alice Springs News Online. “The light show is showing the wrong story – it’s Alice Springs Aboriginal Disneyland on the way.”
One thing is certain: there are plans to expand. Anthony Bastic, director of AGB Events, also curates and produces Sydney’s wildly popular Vivid Light Walk, which helped attract 2.3m visitors last year.
“Our dream is to replicate that in some way here,” he said at the opening-night dinner. “This should be the desert light festival that is on the global calendar.”
The Guardian was a guest of Tourism NT
