Still from Putikutu Ananyi; Bush Trip (2021). Image courtesy of Milpa, Spinifex Arts Project via Kluge-Ruhe.
Stop-motion films made by Milpa, Spinifex Arts Project—on view at Kluge-Ruhe December 13, 2024 – June 1, 2025.
Located in the remote Western Australian town of Tjuntjuntjara, Milpa (est. 2018) is a small, creative studio operated by Spinifex Arts Project for the local community to experiment with film, animation, model making, and more.
Through digital media, young artists have produced artworks that capture and express their ideas, cultural values, and humor under the cultural guidance of senior artists and community members. They are narrated almost exclusively in a dialect of Pitjantjatjara, a prominent and thriving Indigenous language spoken in the region. These short films, created by and for the community, are an important creative and contemporary record of what it means to be a Spinifex artist living and working in one of the most remote areas of Australia.
From December 13, 2024 – March 2, 2025 we will be showing Walawuruku Iti Katingu: An Eagle Story (2019) and Seatbelt Tjura: Put on Your Seatbelt (2018).
From March 4 – June 1, 2025 we will be showing Putikutu Ananyi: Bush Trip (2021), Milpa Movie (2018) and The Tjuntjuntjara_Nya Cooking Show Mai Wiru Palanya: Cooking Beautiful Food (2023) .
Artist Maureen Donegan talks about making the miniature replica of the Tjuntjuntjara Women’s Centre kitchen seen in The Tjuntjuntjara_Nya Cooking Show, Mai Wiru Palanya: Making Beautiful Food (2023). Image provided by Milpa, Spinifex Arts Project via Kluge-ruhe
Milpa: Stop-motion animation by Spinifex Artists is curated by Katina Davidson, who is undertaking a six-month curatorial residency over the 2024-25 academic year. Katina Davidson (Kullilli/Yuggera) is Curator of Indigenous Australian Art at Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane. She curated mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri: Judy Watson, a career survey of work by the acclaimed Brisbane-based Waanyi artist on view at Queensland Art Gallery through August 11, 2024. Other major exhibitions co-curated by Davidson include Embodied Knowledge: Queensland Contemporary Art in 2022-2023 and Mavis Ngallametta: Show Me the Way to Go Home in 2020. She previously worked at the State Library of Queensland’s kuril dhagun, which is a dedicated space for First Nations peoples to gather, celebrate and exhibit culture as well as to access library services, resources, and collections. Davidson continues to work on independent curatorial and writing projects and is also a practicing artist.
During her residency, Davidson is curating an exhibition that focuses on paintings by Spinifex People from Tjuntjuntjara, Western Australia, produced between 2001-2021. Spinifex People left their ancestral homelands when the British began nuclear testing in the Australian desert. They began painting with acrylic on canvas in 1997 as part of their Native Title claim involving the return of their homelands and are supported by Spinifex Arts Project.
Animator and artist Kym Coleman prepares puppets for the scene in Putikutu Ananyi: Bush Trip (2021) where they cook maku (witchetty grub or moth larvae). Image provided by Milpa, Spinifex Arts Project via Kluge-Ruhe
The exhibition will be drawn from a significant collection of more than 50 paintings given to Kluge-Ruhe by Gary Brown and Greg Castillo of the University of California at Berkeley, featuring prominent artists such as Lawrence Pennington, Tjaruwa Woods, Patju Presley and Timo Hogan. It will also include large collaborative paintings on loan from exhibition partner Fondation Opale. Located in Lens, Switzerland, Fondation Opale will present an expanded version of the exhibition from December 2026 to April 2027.
Davidson’s residency has been supported by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body, in partnership with QAGOMA.