Desert Mob Exhibition Opening 2014. Photo by Lisa Hatzimihail Photography.
Desert Mob began its life as an exhibition; the Central Australian Aboriginal Art and Craft Exhibition. Twenty five years on, it has become one of Australia’s premier events on the contemporary Aboriginal art landscape. Today it includes an ​symposium and marketplace as well as an exhibition featuring new artworks from Aboriginal-owned art centres throughout Central Australia.
From 3 to 5 September 2015, the event brings together Desart member art centres to celebrate the vibrancy of Aboriginal art from the Central and Western Desert regions, at the Araluen Arts Centre in Alice Springs.
Art centres represented in Desert Mob are all Aboriginal-owned and controlled, located across Central Australia, in Alice Springs and remote communities in the Northern Territory, as well as communities in South Australia and Western Australia.
Curator at the Araluen Arts Centre, Stephen Williamson, said the Desert Mob event is about ‘putting artists and their art centres at the forefront in the form of an Exhibition, Symposium and Marketplace’. The exhibition features approximately 300 artworks from 30 to 35 art centres.
‘The ownership that Aboriginal artists have over the event is significant and a factor that makes it unique. It’s very much driven by the artists and their art centres. The art centres select which works they exhibit in the exhibition. Artworks can range in price from $100 to $20,000 and some of the best work art centres are producing is exhibited in Desert Mob,’ said Williamson. ‘It’s very much about the artists and what they want to put forward for the visitors to view and what story they want to tell about their art centres. That’s always been the case from the beginning.’
The Desert Mob Marketplace provides a unique opportunity to purchase artworks by established and emerging artists from a wide range of Aboriginal arts centres in the one venue, with the added opportunity to interact with artists, to learn about their art, their art centres and their culture.
‘The Marketplace is an opportunity to sell works in a lower price bracket. It’s a very popular event, very frenetic in terms of visitors and the numbers of works people buy. It’s a great opportunity to buy lower price works by recognized artists up to the value of $500,’ said Williamson.
The Desert Mob Symposium is a day of presentations by artists, art centre managers and special guests. Through images, film, animation and performance, artists reveal and share their stories, ideas, projects and creative processes with the audience.
‘The Marketplace and Symposium have been key factors in Desert Mob becoming such an important event on a national level. The three events together create a really unique event where visitors to Alice Springs can get amazing insights into how art centres operate, about the works that come out of art centres and the culture that informs it,’ said Williamson.
For more information visit Desert Mob.
