Panel: UNTOLD Darwin 2023

11 August 2023 
Darwin George Brown Botanic Gardens Visitor Centre | Darwin NT 

Facilitated by Agency Projects, UNTOLD shines a light on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices across a broad range of topics from caring for Country to the unseen work of women in communities, and the importance of intergenerational learning, demonstrating the interconnectedness and diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures in an intimate setting. 

UNTOLD Darwin 2023, coinciding with the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair, brought together leading Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, creatives, cultural leaders and academics for a weekend of Indigenous-led conversation and connection. Two voices which, we are proud to say, belonged to Anindilyakwa Arts.  

Danjibana Noeleen Lalara and Maicie Lalara joined Powerhouse Museum First Nations Curator, Coby Edgar and artist Lucy Simpson for Alchemy: Contemporary Aboriginal Natural Dying Practices.  

Panelist are part of an upcoming exhibition that will be launched later this year at the Powerhouse's new venue in Castle Hill (NSW). The exhibition, Alchemy, explores the seemingly magical process of transformation, creation or combination in relation to endemic botanical dyes. The discussion unpacked the tangible and sometimes magical transformation that occurs in their daily practice, which is informed by deep social and cultural knowledge.  

Later in the day, Dabjibana Noeleen Lalara joined Professor Marcia Langton AO, Judith Ryan AM, Shanysa McConville, Coby Edgar, Michelle Woody Minnapinni, Marrnyula Mununggurr and Hannah Presley for Untold, not forgotten: 65,000 years: A short history of Australian art.  

In partnership with the University of Melbourne, the panel of female curators and artists discussed what lies untold yet not forgotten in Australia’s post-invasion history and the Indigenous art tradition that precedes Australian settler art by many millennia. 

Questioning why Aboriginal art has only been recognised in the literature of Australian art from the late 1980s, the discussion dived into the University of Melbourne’s great historic collections and remembered some of the great architects of change, acknowledging the importance of Indigenous women artists, leaders, and healers who have been too often overlooked.