Tjanpi Desert Weavers
Tjanpi Aboriginal Baskets (Central Desert, NT, SA and WA) is the dynamic arts employment project of the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjarra Yankunytjatjarra (NPY) Women’s Council, engaging Indigenous communities of the Central Desert region in NT, SA and WA. The 26 year old Women’s Council is based in Alice Springs, having grown from an advocacy service into a major Indigenous-directed organisation delivering a wide range of health, social and cultural services.
TJANPI (meaning grass) began as a series of basket weaving workshops initiated by the NPY Women’s Counicl on Ngaanyatjarra Lands in 1995. Beginning with a series of basket making workshops for women held on Ngaanyatjarra Lands it soon spread to other women on neighbouring communities who wanted meaningful employment in their homelands, to be able to provide for their families. Building on traditional weaving practice, new-found weaving skills were shared with relations on neighbouring communities, and the practise quickly spread. Today, more than 400 women across 28 communities are making baskets and sculptures out of desert grass and other material, and working with fibre in this way is now firmly embedded in Western and Central Desert culture.
In 2005, the organisation received the prestigious Telstra sponsored National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, for a collaborative work called Toyota Dreaming (below) made by 20 weavers from the Blackstone side of the Tjanpi ‘family’ tree.
The philanthropic grant provided by the Balnaves Foundation over three years will enable Tjanpi to develop new forms, techniques, expressions and quality of work; to expand the skills to new communities; as well as to develop its profile.
Doris, Judith and Eunice at a bush camp
Weavers in the Tjanpi corner
Freda Lane collecting Tjanpi
Tjanpi Toyota Dreaming 2005