Art prizes bridge distances for remote communities

Artist Rhonda Unurupa Dick in action. Image: via tjalaarts.com.au

Grants, prizes and awards are a staple when it comes to emerging and established artists, writers, filmmakers, and designers advancing their career. But for a remote artist, does the opportunity to have your work showcased beside the country’s have added importance?

As a prelude to the inaugural Tarnanthi festival, ArtsHub had the rare opportunity to visit the art centres across Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands (APY Lands) in South Australia. In each of the four art centres – Mimili Maku, Ernabella Arts, Tjala Arts and Iwantja Arts – captivating works created for the Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA) populated the studio.

Mimili Maku art centre manager Natalie O’Connor said: ‘The Telstra Award is the big one on the calendar for Mimili Maku Arts. It is something that is talked a lot about in the art centre in the lead up and the top artists will begin working on large scale canvases in the months leading up to the deadline, making sure their best work is submitted’.

Nici Cumpston, Artistic Director of Tarnanthi said awards and prizes are an opportunity for artists to gain exposure across the country by peers, collectors, curators, state institutions, and gallery directors – people who have the opportunity to exhibit artists in the future and write about their work and thereby create awareness of the work.

‘I guess the other thing is the publicity that comes with that, but also the opportunity to put into words what the artists are working towards – what it is that they are creating,’ said Cumpston.

Awards that give artists an opportunity to create a body of work are particularly valuable. Cumpston said such awards and prizes are important because it gives artists an opportunity to focus and make work in accordance to a specification.

Ernabella Arts (Pukatja Pottery) art centre manager Hannah Kothe told ArtsHub that these specifications that art prizes provide can create momentum and energy in the centre as ‘everyone works towards creating their best work for a prize’.