This innovative language and creativity project comes a full circle as AIATSIS acquires the collection generated in Ankkinyi Apparr, Ankkinyi Mangurr (Our Language, Our Designs).
Ankkinyi Apparr, Ankkinyi Mangurr is a long-term collaboration between members of the Warumungu Community of Tennant Creek, Barkly Regional Arts and UQ researcher Samantha Disbray working with Warumungu linguists Sandra Morrison and Rosemary Plummer and the Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS).
It began as a language archival repatriation, documentation and revitalisation project, focussed on a collection of audio recordings made by linguist Prith Chakravarti in 1966 for AIAS (now AIATSIS). After receiving copies of the recordings from AIATSIS in 2015, the project team (Morrison, Plummer and Disbray) set to work consulting families, returning, transcribing and translating the many Warumungu recordings. In the intervening 50 years, the effects of long-term colonisation and dispossession have been catastrophic for the Warumungu language and its Community of speakers. After a time, the team felt they needed to push the boundaries of language work and integrate creative practice to include and engage families and Community members with the recordings and in the project at a deeper level. They began experimenting with creating and preforming soundscapes and installations at events, creating new opportunities for Community to hear and respond to the historical language recordings. After one, the artists from Barkly Regional Arts came forward, enthusiastic to work with the recordings and the visual arts collaboration began. It resulted in a body of paintings and two short films for the ICTV Bedtime stories series. The paintings, videos and soundscape were unveiled at the Art Gallery of South Australia’s Tarnanthi Festival in 2019 as Ankkinyi Apparr, Ankkinyi Mangurr, subsequently exhibited at Nyinkka Nyunyu Art and Culture Centre in 2021.
In 2023 AIATSIS acquired the collection, bringing the project a full circle. The acquisition ensures the collection stays together and the cultural and historical stories in the audio, textual and visual collection can be shared into the future. AIATSIS’ legacy in facilitating cultural resurgence and preserving language celebrated. The project was funded by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Languages and the Australian National University, where Samantha held the position of Senior Research Fellow (2015-2018). Samantha continues to collaborate on the project supported in her role as Lecturer in Endangered Languages at UQ. She is working with Sandra Morrison, Rosemary Plummer and Barkly Regional Arts on a book to accompany the collection and its proposed exhibition in 2024.
