Birndi Wirndi | Worlds Apart: Site-Specific Documentary
Year: 2010
Format: High resolution digital projection, stereo sound
Dimensions: 30m x 5m
Dur: 14mins
Created by Sohan Ariel Hayes & Michael Woodley
Partner:Spaced, Art Out of Place & Juluwarlu Aboriginal Group
Birndi Wirndi/Worlds Apart a site-specific documentary created by Sohan Ariel Hayes and Michael Woodley.
Within this work the tragic histories of European and Indigenous relations in the Roebourne area of the Pilbara in Western Australia are collected, questioned and reassembled. Specifically, digital projection and sound is used to represent such scenes as a deluge of alcohol, blood and semen running down the façade of the Roebourne pub.
With support from IASKA (formally International Art Space Kelleberrin Australia), Hayes undertook a residency in Roebourne as part of Spaced – an international Biennale event designed to commission site-specific works in rural and regional communities and form connections between urban and remote (IASKA, 2011). Hayes works across media and has always invited cross-disciplinary collaboration, whether it be with the sciences, for example, or sectors of the wider community.
In Roebourne Hayes was hosted by Juluwarlu Aboriginal Corporation, a space with an adjoining media centre in the midst of Roebourne town. Juluwarlu is an organisation dedicated to Yindjibarndi cultural heritage, the recording of stories and sites and the preservation of language (Juluwarlu Group, n.d.).
The key resource for the creation of the work was an archive of maps, photographs and documents rescued from the abandoned offices of the Murujuga Nhanggangunha Land Council. This material, along with other cultural matter in the form of artefacts, books, genealogical, charts, anthropological and archaeological papers, cassette and video tapes – once on the verge of being dumped - is today preserved and kept up-to-date at the Juluwarlu Aboriginal Corporation (Rejavic F. 2010, p.29). The collaborators sifted through, selected and re-designated such fragments of the past to create the work. The plethora of documentation was pieced together into the medium of the moving image in a narrative format and this structure, along with the documentary content, enabled it to reach audiences both at the level of familiarity and novelty.
Our right goes back to the blood of the Ngaarda, on this land. The blood of the Ngaardangarli from being born…the blood of Ngaardangarli from living, and the blood of Ngaardangarli from dying.
If you are looking to put ink on paper, this is our ink on paper. This is how it is associated to us because Yindjibarndi are born on Yindjibarndi country, they live on country and they die on country.
These are the words of Michael Woodley, an Yindjibarndi man based in Roebourne, Western Australia. They describe a world view that insists on the significance of place, the rights to country as blood rights born out of the fact of centuries of living and dying on Yindjibarndi land. They affirm a political stance that is still today embroiled in an ongoing battle coming out of decades of colonial abuse of a people and a country. There is an urgency to keep affirming such words, especially for the Yindjibarndi people who are presently fighting for their land rights in the face of looming mining giants. There is also a need to acknowledge the realities of the past and work toward a more hopeful future in the present. This was what concerned Woodley and Perth-based media artist Sohan Ariel Hayes as they embarked on a collaborative art project in Roebourne.