“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Yukultji Napangati


She is part of the Lost Tribe, last hunter gatherer group in Australia, the Pintupi Nine. Here is a nice page of Pintupi women artists. And here is the page of the Aboriginal-owned Papunya Tula Artists of the Western Desert. Highly recommended for the astonishing online gallery of paintings.

It's interesting watching video footage of her work. The camera seems to freak out, like your eyes do, when it sees the images. The images collapse into pixelated blur.

2 comments:

Karl said...

just a small note: i think the wiki is stating they were the last hunting and gathering band in Australia (until 1984)... definitely not Earth. the Hadza of Tanzania (and others) are an example of people who still hunt and gather but have had other economies (cash + farmers/pastoralists) encroach on them as of late. it wasnt until about 1996 when alcohol started to really show up (when the cash economy did from tourism. thats when neighboring people who produced alcohol would start to actual "trade" it to them), and they resisted government settlements multiple times. very interesting people. very anarchistic.

Timothy Morton said...

Thank you for that. Emended.