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An aboriginal oasis at Blue Penny Museum
The visitor’s attention is literally caught by some strange feeling on entering the world of Kiripuranji, the aboriginal art exhibition, which is on until 4th of June at the Blue Penny Museum, Caudan, Port-Louis. Though the exhibition may be temporary, itinerant on its trip around the world, the dimension that it hosts transports one totally from the stress and hectic time management which has become the fate of modern life.
No surprise, for the vividly colorful artistry of the Tiwi people, who live in islands found in Australia’s Northern Territorry, speaks about a civilisation that has been present on earth for 40 000 years now, a time uninterrupted, a span of eternity as vast as the Australian continent itself. The Tiwi or “we people” are said to originate from “a time before time” in their mythology. So these people so close to their heavily forested land have had time to think, to live, and even more perhaps to feel…
Revealingly, Kiripuranji means “clever with our hands”. Art is thus omnipresent in their culture, even replacing written language and standing as the medium for laws. This is perhaps why its expression is so simple and so strong. Now, one encounters the show-pieces, presented in three broad sections, the first characterized by simple graphism without streches of colour, the second by a strict, yet strikingly beautiful, grammar of ocre tones, and the third borrowing from modern acrylic techniques. Almost everything is made out of natural elements.
The theme of last Wednesday’s International day for museums, was “museums, bridges between cultures”. At the Kiripuranji exhibition, whose entrance is free, the bridge, among other creative connections, is time. And a 45-minute span to follow through the rich lines and the patterns of Tiwi art is truly rewarding. It is like grasping a handful of eternity…
<B>Jake NICHOLSON</B>
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