“Seven Sisters Songline” 1994 (detail) by Josephine Mick, Ninuku Arts © the artist/Copyright Agency 2020, Image: Nathan Mewett
In collaboration with the National Museum of Australia, the renowned travelling exhibition stops in Tampere to bring a dose of sunshine to the Finnish autumn.
The exhibition originated when three Aboriginal nations from the central Australian desert sought help from the National Museum of Australia to preserve the vitality of their culture. The elders of these nations serve as the curators of the exhibition.
At the heart of Vapriikki’s extensive exhibition is one of the most widespread stories in the oral traditions of Australia’s First Nations peoples, the story of the Seven Sisters. The mythical Dreaming stories of the Aboriginal people, known as songlines, are the creation stories of the Australian continent. They form a network of stories, customs, and knowledges across the vast continent; they are Australia’s foundational narratives from the Aboriginal perspective. The songlines create a kind of map drawn in the form of stories, explaining how the Dreaming ancestors created each landform, taught the use of each area’s resources, and provided behavioural rules for communities. The story of the Seven Sisters is one of Australia’s most important songlines and is told through the exhibition’s artworks and artifacts. At the same time, visitors will learn about Aboriginal culture, customs, and traditions that are up to 60,000 years old.
“Kungkarrangkalnga-ya Parrpakanu (Seven Sisters Are Flying)” 2015 (detail) by artists from Tjanpi Desert Weavers, displayed at the Songlines exhibition at the National Museum of Australia,Canberra, 2017 © the artists/Copyright Agency 2020, Image: Nathan Mewett
An an epic tale of lust, love, passion and danger, the Seven Sisters encounter Wati Nyiru, a powerful and devious sorcerer who desires one of the sisters for his wife. Lore prevents Wati Nyiru from marrying the sister he desires. Nevertheless, he passionately wants her for himself and chases the fleeing women across the Australian continent. In the end, the sisters escape by flying up into the sky, where they become the Pleiades star cluster. The sorcerer follows them, becoming the Orion constellation and forever pursues the sisters across the night sky. In the exhibition’s digital dome experience, visitors can lie under the starry sky and watch this ancient story of the sisters play out around them.
The Pleiades are visible across the world. In Finland they are a brightness in the winter sky. Stories of the Pleiades appear in cultures everywhere including in the mythologies of Persia, Greece, Egypt, China, and the Indigenous peoples of North America. The story of the Seven Sisters is perhaps the world’s oldest story.
SOURCE: Vapriikki Museum.