Intercultural Images: Warlpiri Drawings from the 1950s

In 1953-54 anthropologist Mervyn Meggitt collected 144 drawings by Warlpiri people at Lajamanu. This project will explore the two-fold significance of the drawings - produced as part of a process in which Warlpiri people were making sense of their rapidly changing world, and as mediating objects in cross-cultural exchange. The project will bring the drawings to the attention of the descendants of the artists as well as the public, and result in a monograph that explores their significance within the history of the western desert art movement, as well as for the Warlpiri community.