This second book in the Aboriginal Arts and Knowledge series documents a body of work created cooperatively by 4 artists: Ted Egan Tjangala, Dinny Nolan Tjampitjinpa, Johnny Possum Tjapaltjarri and Albie Morris Tjampitjinpa. Wamulu, a yellow flower, has traditionally been used during ritual ceremonies in the western desert of Australia. The wamulu flower is gathered, dried, cut up, and mixed with ochre and binders before being applied to the ground. This catalogue for an exhibition at the Fondation Opale showcases an exceptional project that took place near Alice Springs between 2002 and 2005, where this collective of artists used paint made from the wamulu flower, which is most often associated with impermanence, to create contemporary and permanent works of art. At the same time, they honoured the traditional Aboriginal process of communal performance, participation, and song that emphasises the link between the present and the past. Includes an interview with the noted Aboriginal art expert Arnaud Serval, who facilitated the work of the collective. Text in English and French.

Why are these specific artworks the subject of this first monograph? Produced in 2018, the sumptuous paintings, aa is the Kulata Tjuta Kupi Kupi installation, are collaborative artworks. They are reminiscent of the collaborative production process of art in Aboriginal Australia. These major works, in which a variety of Dreaming stories that define the region converge, form cornerstones of the collection that lies at the heart of the Fondation Opale. The Fondation Opale, and its founder and driving force Berengere Primat, has a particularly strong and active relationship with the art centres and the artists of that region of Australia. Several journeys were made to the APY lands in Central Australia. Both paintings, to which respectively several senior women and men collaborated, were commissioned by Berengere Primat and the painting process abundantly documented. These magisterial paintings are testimony to the continuum of culture and intimate knowledge of the land through art. Kupi Kupi, an iteration of the ongoing Kulata Tjuta (many spears in the Pitjantjatjara language) initiated in 2010, is a contemporary and monumental art installation consisting of 1500 spears. It is a metaphor for contemporary Anangu society and the unpredictable direction in which it is moving. All these artworks are testimony to the renewal and relevancy of Aboriginal art in contemporary times. Text in English and French.