"Seven Sisters travelled the land, dancing and singing the country into being. They delighted in life, dining richly on the fruits and grains they harvested and finding all the water they needed. Then it happened that a lone man, known as Wati Nyiru, discovered them. The Sisters wanted nothing to do with him and fled in fear whenever he approached. He would cry in frustration but despite all his wiles they always escaped him. On and on they travelled and on and on he followed until one day the sisters flew so far they reached the sky.”
The installation is made up of seven low benches sitting around a central table to the grouping of U shapes around a waterhole or camp as seen in desert art. The designs on the tops were created by Walkatjara artists Rene Kulitja, Jennifer Taylor and Pamela Taylor to portray aspects of the journey of the Seven Sisters.
We engraved the imagery into the tops to reflect the practice of drawing stories in the sand, incising on traditional weapons such as spear throwers and to form a direct connection with the desert landscape of the Anangu people.
The artworks were transformed into a digital format by design coordinator Ruth McDermott and engraved into the tops of the benches and table using CNC (Computer Numerically Controlled) routing or engraving by machine. This project was undertaken as part of a grant from the Australia Council for the Arts, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board, Skills and Arts Development Grant.
