Kunmanara Queama 1947–2009, Pitjantjatjara people, South Australia Hilda Moodoo born 1952, Pitjantjatjara people, South Australia Destruction I 2002, Oak Valley, South Australia synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 122.0 x 101.2 cm Santos Fund for Aboriginal <strong>Art</strong> 2002 © Kunmanara Queama and Hilda Moodoo maralinga TjaruTja PeoPle
Kunmanara Queama 1947–2009, Pitjantjatjara people, South Australia Hilda Moodoo born 1952, Pitjantjatjara people, South Australia Kunmanara Queama was born at Ooldea, on the eastern edge of the Nullabor Plain. With the dispersal of residents after the closure of the United Aborigines Mission (UAM), he was sent to the Lutheran mission school at Koonibba, near Ceduna. Over the years he worked as a farmer and labourer on wheat farms across the Eyre Peninsula. He became recognised as ‘an excellent community leader and a person who commanded a strong respect from those around him’, 1 serving as a member and chairperson of the Maralinga Tjarutja Council. He worked for many years on land conservation and management boards, and had an abiding commitment to the return of the Maralinga Tjarutja lands. Most of the Maralinga lands were returned to the Pitjantjatjara people in 1984, and in that year he and his wife Hilda Moodoo were among the founders of the Oak Valley community there, a community 150 kilometres northwest of Maralinga. Hilda Moodoo was the second child of Daniel and June Moodoo, who married in the 1940s at the UAM at Ooldea, after ‘coming in’ from the desert. In 1952, when the mission closed, Daniel and June were sent to the Riverland, where Hilda was born that year, at Barmera. It was not until she had turned eighteen that Hilda saw her country and met her extended family for the first time. Hilda and Kunmanara raised six children together. Painting began at Oak Valley from December 2001 when Victorian Aboriginal artist Lance Atkinson spent two months there teaching the technical skills for painting on canvas. Hilda Moodoo and Kunmanara Queama’s Destruction I was included in the resulting <strong>Desert</strong> Oaks exhibition at the Adelaide Festival Centre in March 2002. The <strong>Desert</strong> Oaks project was a deliberate expression of identity for the new community formed after dispossession. The project represented an opportunity ‘to pass on their knowledge through their paintings and leave their history behind for others’. 2 In Destruction I the artists depict a mushroom-cloud shape which is a result of the atomic bomb blast. 1 Jay Weatherill, Ministerial statement to House of Assembly, Hansard, SA Parliament, 17 November 2009, p. 4638. 2 Robin Usher, ‘From history’s shadow’, Age, 20 February 2002, Culture, p. 3. Locate Maralinga and Oak Valley on the map provided. Research the effect the atomic bomb and rocket tests had on the artists, their families, and communities, and their country. What feeling or mood do the artists convey in this painting? Discuss how you might feel if you had your home destroyed and had to leave your country, perhaps never to return. maralinga TjaruTja PeoPle PRIMARY SECONDARY Carefully analyse the painting and look at the different way the artists use colour, line, pattern and shape to communicate their story – and the feelings that go with this story/event. Locate photographs taken at the Maralinga test site. Compare these with photographs recording the atomic bombs used in time of war – for example photos of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Research the effect the atomic bomb and rocket tests had on the artists, their families, and communities, and their country.
- Page 1 and 2: Desert Country EDUCATION RESOURCE
- Page 3 and 4: Information for teachers This educa
- Page 5 and 6: ‘When we, as Aboriginal people, t
- Page 7 and 8: Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri c.1934
- Page 9 and 10: Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula 1942-2001,
- Page 11 and 12: Doreen Reid Nakamarra Doreen Reid N
- Page 13 and 14: Angelina Pwerle born c.1952, Anmaty
- Page 15 and 16: Rover Thomas 1926-1998, Kukatja/Wan
- Page 17 and 18: Mabel Juli born 1933, Gija people,
- Page 19 and 20: Tommy Mitchell born 1943, Ngaanyatj
- Page 21 and 22: Tjumpo Tjapanangka c.1929-2007, Kuk
- Page 23 and 24: Ginger Wikilyiri anangu PiTjanTjaTj
- Page 25 and 26: Harry Tjutjuna anangu PiTjanTjaTjar
- Page 27 and 28: Nura Rupert anangu PiTjanTjaTjara y
- Page 29: anangu PiTjanTjaTjara yankunyTjaTja
- Page 33 and 34: Lilly Kelly Napangardi born c.1948,
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