David Malangi

One of the artists that I'm focussing on in my major essay assignment is Michael Riley. The significance of Riley's work is the skills he posses and that is able to employ in both the mediums of still photography and film. This is especially his ability to connect with his subject and use it to portray that subject in a light that is insightful and quite intimate and personal at the same time. This can be seen quite extensively in his 1991 documentary film Malangi for Blackout (SBS), which I watched to gain an understanding of Riley's film work, but was rewarded with the story of renowned Aboriginal bark painter David Malangi.

Riley travelled to central Arnhem land to make the film and meet with Malangi, to show the many important spiritual and ancestral elements to his life and his work. David Malangi who was of the Manharrju clan of the Dhuwa moiety, has worked featured in many international collections, like that of the Asian Societies gallery in New York which he visited in 1989. However, it's not the remarkable work itself that connected with me in this film, but everything in Malangi's lifethat made me respect that work and his role in creating it. What Riley is able to communicate really well in this film is the pivotal responsibility Malangi posses in looking after the different people and land he is connected with in central Arnhem land. His land of the Dhuwa moitey, Mulanja and Durrunyuwa on the eastern bank of the Glyde River of the Arafura Sea and Dhamala and Dhabilla on the Western side of the river, as well as his mothers and grandmothers land, Yirritja moitey lands around Yathalamarra billabong 20km inland from the Arafura coast, all form part of his responsibility.

Seeing Malangi hunt, play and source painting materials with his family from the land and animals around the waterholes, rivers and billabongs became something quite beautiful. What made this even more intimate for me was the dreamings Malangi shares in these sacred locations that present the strong connection and understanding he has of them, and that 'are' his work. As Malangi states in the film:
"The paintings are just like our sacred sights and dreamings. In doing paintings we are acting out our ancestral traditions. That's where they come from, our secret dreamings."
These dreamings include that of the Djang-Wuwa sisters who came from the east in Dabila and who walked slowly across the land with their digging sticks, creating water holes where they touched the land. Along the way Malangi explains how they named places like Gilmimgarri, as well as naming the tribes and languages along the way before leaving their digging sticks at the beach at Malwiningirr before walking into the sunset. The waterholes created by the sisters become places for the Dhuwa people to hunt tortoises to eat and survive on today. This all takes form in Malangi's bark paintings. What becomes significant to me is how this deep understanding of his people and land captured in these stories is told and shown to hundreds of thousands of other people in different cultures all around the world.

However, an issue explored in the film is the exploitation and misuse of these stories that ironically created Malangi's success. The dreaming of the ancestral being Gurrimirringu and the creation of the land around the Eastern mouth of the Glyde river. This dreaming is depicted in many of Malangi's paintings, a portion of which was printed as the design on the Australian $1.00 by the reserve bank in 1965. Malangi only found out about the design, that features Gurrimirringu at a funeral scene, when it first appeared on the notes in 1966. The came across to me as quite disturbing and disrespectful, especially understanding the significance of these paintings Malangi is creating. What makes this lack of understanding of Indigenous culture even more significant is the Reserve Banks attempt to acknowledge their mistake, when the administrator gave Malangi a medal, dinghy and $500 for using his artwork. The material rewards in exchage for taking and using the sacred stories of three generations of people I feel is unjustified and purely wrong. If Riley's film showed anything to me, it's how important these stories are to the people which Aboriginal elders like Malangi have responsability over, to look after them and their land. The end of the film highlights the importance of keepng this alive, as Malangi explains he looks to his three sons Albert, Charlier and Neville to understand the law of the people and carry on these responsibilities.

This film was made in 1991, 8 years before Malangi's death. After seeing this film, I really hope these responsibilities and impact Malangi has on the people of Yolnju and Balanda is kept alive through his family descendents. However Malangi's paintings will still remain, as a way to share to those all over the world, who aren't familiar, his land, people and the importance of the dreamings that keep them connected.

David Malangi, The Gurrmirringu Myth, 1982,  earth pigment on eucalyptus bark, 117.3 x 67.4 cm, Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide

Australian one dollar note featuring the artwork of David Malangi, printed in 1966

References:

• Brenda L. Croft, "Up in the sky, behind the clouds". In Michael Riley: Sights Unseen, edited by Kathryn Favelle, 17-47. (Canberra, A.C.T.: National Gallery of Australia, 2006)
• Michael Riley, Blackout - Malangi (Sydney, N.S.W.: Aboriginal Program Unit, Australian Broadcasting Corperation, 1991), DVD
• Susan Jenkins, "This is our story and this is our country", No Ordinary Place: The art of David Malangi, http://nga.gov.au/Exhibition/malangi/Default.cfm?MnuID=6&Essay=1, (accessed: 26/10/2011)