Iltja Ntjarra Many Hands Art Centre

Kuprilya Kwatja Etatha (Kuprilya Living Water)

Just past Ntaria (Hermannsburg) east of Alice Springs is Kuprilya and nearby is an old pipeline, laid on Aranda Country in the early 1930s during drought. Each year on 1 October, the Aranda community gathers at the spring at Kuprilya to mark the moment when water was first piped from there into Hermannsburg in 1935. Taking a visual cue from Albert Namatjira’s boomerang depicting the pipeline, on display here, this project includes contemporary watercolour paintings and drawings, paintings on boomerangs and a short film by the current generation of Aranda artists working at Iltja Ntjarra in Mparntwe (Alice Springs). The project, curated by Marisa Maher and assisted by Melbourne-based artist Tom Nicholson, has six ‘chapters’ that trace the history of the pipeline and the Kuprilya area. They include before Christianity, before the Kuprilya pipeline, the making of Kuprilya pipeline, after the making of the pipeline, Kuprilya Day and now.

Artists

Benita Clements, Kathleen France, Noreen Hudson, Clara Inkamala, Dellina Inkamala, Diane Inkamala, Kathy Inkamala, Reinhold Inkamala, Vanessa Inkamala, Gloria Moketarinja, Betty Namatjira Wheeler
Western Aranda people, Northern Territory

Selma Coulthard Nunay
Aranda/Luritja people, Northern Territory

Georgie Kentiltja
Aranda people, Northern Territory

Hubert Pareroultja, Ivy Pareroultja, Marcus Wheeler
Western Aranda/Luritja people, Northern Territory

Mervyn Rubuntja
Eastern Aranda people, Northern Territory