Sullivan + Strumpf

Viewing Room

Dhopiya Yunupiŋu
Djärritjarri - The Woven Cloth

Melbourne
15 Feb – 09 Mar 24

INTRODUCTION

Sullivan+Strumpf is proud to present Djärritjarri - The Woven Cloth, Dhopiya Yunupiŋu's second solo exhibition with the gallery.

Painted on bark, paper and larrakitji (memorial poles), her works draw upon the shared histories between the Yolŋu people and Maccassan traders, the Indonesian fisherman with whom her ancestors traded trepang (sea cucumber), a connection which predated European contact with Australia.

Dhopiya Yunupiŋu, Djärritjarri - The Woven Cloth, 2023.
Installation view, Sullivan+Strumpf Naarm/Melbourne. Photography by Alberto Zimmerman.

Dhopiya Yunupiŋu, Djärritjarri - The Woven Cloth, 2023.
Installation view, Sullivan+Strumpf Naarm/Melbourne. Photography by Alberto Zimmerman.

Galiku 2023

natural earth pigments on bark
251.5 × 111 cm

Galiku 2023

natural earth pigments on bark
185 × 98 cm

Galiku 2023

natural earth pigments on bark
160 × 81 cm

Galiku 2023

bark painting
175 × 83 cm

Galiku 2023

natural earth pigments on board
300 × 190 cm

Dhopiya Yunupiŋu, Djärritjarri - The Woven Cloth, 2023.
Installation view, Sullivan+Strumpf Naarm/Melbourne. Photography by Alberto Zimmerman.

"The colours of the sarung tell the story of the human soul, the weather, the sky and the stars. These knowledges have been systematically passed through generations, intertwining creative thoughts, values and actions."

ABDI KARYA

Galiku 2023

natural earth pigments on bark
189 × 79.5 cm

Galiku 2023

natural earth pigments on bark
179 × 82 cm

Galiku 2023

bark painting
205 × 84cm

Galiku 2024

bark painting
194 × 84 cm

Dhopiya Yunupiŋu, Djärritjarri - The Woven Cloth, 2023.
Installation view, Sullivan+Strumpf Naarm/Melbourne. Photography by Alberto Zimmerman.

Galiku 2023

natural earth pigments on bark
292 × 32 cm
Photography by Alberto Zimmerman

Galiku 2023

natural earth pigments on bark
303 × 28 cm
Photography by Alberto Zimmerman

"This flag is for Yolŋu and Macassans, this painting that I paint here, it is from the beginning, from a long time ago. From before we were born."

DHOPIYA YUNUPIŊU

Galiku 2023

natural earth pigments on bark
63.5 × 48 cm
(DY2023-13)

Galiku 2023

natural earth pigments on bark
82.5 × 63.5 cm
(DY2023-16)

Galiku 2023

natural earth pigments on bark
92 × 46 cm
(DY2023-14)

Galiku 2023

natural earth pigments on bark
102 × 57 cm

Galiku 2023

natural earth pigments on bark
118 × 74.5 cm
(DY2023-26)

Galiku 2024

bark painting
107 × 66 cm

Galiku 2023

natural earth pigments on bark
106 × 46 cm

Galiku 2023

natural earth pigments on bark
86 × 36 cm
(DY2023-15)

Galiku 2023

natural earth pigments on bark
82 × 72 cm

Dhopiya Yunupiŋu, Djärritjarri - The Woven Cloth, 2023.
Installation view, Sullivan+Strumpf Naarm/Melbourne. Photography by Alberto Zimmerman.

Dhopiya Yunupiŋu, Djärritjarri - The Woven Cloth, 2023.
Installation view, Sullivan+Strumpf Naarm/Melbourne. Photography by Alberto Zimmerman.

Galiku 2024

work on paper
76 × 57 cm

Galiku 2024

work on paper
76 × 57 cm

Galiku 2024

work on paper
76 × 57 cm

Galiku 2024

work on paper
76 × 57 cm

Galiku 2024

work on paper
76.5 × 57 cm

Galiku 2024

work on paper
76 × 57 cm

Galiku 2024

work on paper
76 × 57 cm

EXHIBITION ESSAY

“Leppeq patola lapiq kajému
kutiwireng ko, Puang Matoa.
Manajang sebbu leppeq patola,
sékua to cinaga gading.
Manajang ratuq sawédi kati kutiwireng ko.”

“The folds of your footwear
I brought it for you, Puang Matoa.
Thousands of pieces of cloth,
so is the ivory chest.
Hundreds of fields of gold
I brought for you."

- La Galigo, episode: The Birth of The Golden Twins

The fragment above is a quote from the pre-Islamic manuscript, La Galigo: the genesis of the people of South Sulawesi. It presents a diversity of deep relationships between humans and the spiritual world. For Bugis people, La Galigo not only traces the history of their ancestors, but is a guide or way of looking at the world in the past, present and future. In the text, Sawerigading – the incarnation of a god who has extraordinary powers – loves adventure and travel. Among his entourage was a group of people who always accompanied him wherever he sailed. They were people from the Underworld, dark-skinned, who had the skill of reading waves, understanding animal language and the ability the stars. When I shared this story with my adopted family from the Gumatj clan in Yirrkala, they widened their eyes and said; “They are like Yolŋu people!”.

The Yolŋu word Maŋgatharra, is taken from the word Mangkasara, meaning people from Makassar. During the early periods of trading, all sailors, regardless of ethnicity, that departed from Port Makassar – the central market of the Kingdom of Gowa – were considered as Macassans. The Gowa Kingdom was centered in the southern region of the island of Sulawesi, becoming a trade centre in Southeast Asia from 1500’s to the beginning of 1800’s. Commodities circulating in the archipelago, such as spices, metals, and weapons mainly from areas of eastern Indonesia known as Banda and Maluku, stopped in this region before being moved to other ports in Asia. Among these commodities were trepang (sea cucumber) and cloth.

Cloth has a strong position in tradition in the archipelago. It is recorded in temples spread across various corners of the island of Java as well as ancient manuscripts in Indonesia. In the traditions of the Melanesian people in Flores or the Malay people in Sumatra, they use cloth not only as clothing to mark social status, but also as dowry or a medium of exchange considered as valuable as precious metals and money. In the past, scraps of cloth were used as currency for people in Papua and West Java.

In Bugis and Makassar languages, unconnected pieces of cloth are called caré caré. When both ends of the cloth are sewn together, it is called a lipa or sarung (tubular shape). Sarung or sarong in South Sulawesi tradition are like a second skin. When a baby is born, they are immediately given a special sarung woven by their grandmother, mother or aunt. Babies are swung in a sarung while being lulled to sleep. There are so many children's games that use sarongs. When you grow up and know love, the phrase “Living together in one sarung” was the most popular love metaphor for a man to propose to his girlfriend. At a wedding, sarungs collectively become an expressive language worn by everyone at the party. When traveling, sarungs become a means of packing, as if a bag. It can be used as a tool for climbing trees, a shade umbrella, or a tool for tying. Even when people died, the body was wrapped in a long sarung. I myself am familiar with sarungs because I grew up in a weaver's family. My grandmother, who died at the age of 94, fed our large family through hand-woven sarungs. My own mother has been weaving since a young age and stopped when she gave birth to me.

In Sulawesi, beside sarongs that are made from hand-woven cotton or natural silk, cloth is also made from fibers of pandan leaves, pineapple leaves, or banyan bark, which is flattened by beating. Another fibre, widely known as karoroq, made by palm leaf, is one of the main elements in maritime life, as it is used in boat sails. In several reliefs depicting boats at the Borobudur temple in Central Java, which was built in 750 AD, the boats use sails made from gebang trees (corypha gebanga or coryphe utan [cabbage palm]). In the seafaring tradition in Sulawesi, traders from the Bugis, Makassar and Mandar ethnicities used boats (perahu), such as padewakang, to load various commodities in large quantities and sail to all directions, including long distance voyages such as Australia. This boat has a typical rectangular sail called tanjaq. To make the sail, the leaves are soaked and boiled, similar to how Yolŋu prepared gunga (pandanus), and then woven like weaving a sarong. Karoroq became an important trade commodity as well as being a boat sail. It was also used as clothing material or as part of house buildings such as ceilings or curtains as it was light, flexible, waterproof, and affordable. Later, when plastic materials became popular in the 60-70s, this natural fibre was replaced with plastic, and of course, this tradition almost became extinct. Currently, there are very few families left who can produce karoroq in Sulawesi. This material is significant in relations between the Maccassans of Indonesia and Aboriginal people in Arnhem Land, as Maccassans sailed to Marege to collect the trepang.

Hundreds of years before white colonials arrived on the Australian continent, the people of Arnhem Land worked together as padharribba (gatherers or sailors). Those Arnhem Land residents sailed back and forth to Makassar as family or professional workers. I myself have experienced how deep this cultural connection is, and how important the trail of the Trepangers (collectors of sea cucumbers) is to the Yolŋu people. They give a very special and deep place to the memory of their Macassan family through their lingua franca: songlines, dances, bark painting, rock painting, and even daily gestures. There are many songlines that talk about this relationship. The band Yothü Yindi mentioned it in their Djapana song which roughly means: “as the sun went down, the praus went across and faded through the horizon, we are longing for those who far away.”

When I went to Yirrkala for the first time in 2015, I heard directly hundreds of Bugis-Makassar vocabularies in the Yolŋu mätha like galiku, gharuru, and dhomala. These words refer to sail of the prau. In July-August 2023, I experienced even more powerful moments from my interactions with Yolŋu families from other homelands. In the midst of thousands of people sitting around the main stage at the Garma Festival in Gulkula, I was invited to join in dancing on the bunŋul stage, to join in the bunŋul djäma, raising the flags with dances and songlines including the Djapana songlines. There were also scenes of rowing boats, playing cards, working with machetes, raising flags, and moving cloths. All their movements and words brought me to magnificent feelings of experiencing the strong traditions of Makassar in the past.

At Garma festival, I met Dhopiya through her son, Larry Gurruwiwi, son of the yidaki maestro, Djalu Gurruwiwi. When I introduced myself from Makassar, Dhopiya was very happy and invited me to sit near her while she continued painting yidaki. When I showed her the 1x1 meter piece macassan sail that I brought from Makassar, she stopped, stunned, and said; "This is the sail from the boat that carried my grandfather and my husband's grandfather.” This reaction was exactly the same when I introduced myself and showed this object to her other sisters.

The sail, as well as the bandhirra or flag, is like jewellery for the boat. People treat these objects well. Like the sarong, it is important because it carries power and soul. They represent the spirit of the owner. Red represents blood and brave, blue for calm, green for nobility and yellow for leadeship. For pricier ones, sometimes they inserted copper or gold threads to give a bulaeng (golden) look, for prosperity.

Staring at images of Dhopiya's works made me re-open again the sarung collections from my family that I have kept since I was a student. The fine lines of her brush made from strands of hair reminded me of the silk fibers woven by my grandmother and mother and the threads of the palms. The vertical and horizontal lines in sarungs that are inserted with shapes of diamonds, zig zag, and sizes of square patterns represent the memories of the maker between their life, body, nature and spiritual realms. The colours of the sarung tell the story of the human soul, the weather, the sky and the stars. These knowledges have been systematically passed through generations, intertwining creative thoughts, values and actions. In Dhopiya's works, the colours appear like the sail and the old-style natural-dyed sarungs. The texture itself shows untwined and intertwined threads of the palm-fibres where we can see delicate and durable sitting together side-by-side. I was not surprised to hear that the meanings were similar to what they inherited from her parents, her clans and people in Arhem Land. I am not surprised, because they are like me. In their blood, there is my blood.

Glossary:

caré care . = read it like ca in charter. ré in regional. Tjarri Tjarri or Djarridjarri means fabric or sail.
Karoroq = in Bugis-Makassar language means the material of the sail from palm fiber
Tanjaq = in Bugis-Makassar language means sail
prau/barrawu = in Yolŋu language means boat/ship
padewakang = a type of wooden boat that used during the trade of trepang
gunga = pandanus or pandanus weaving in Yolŋu
Makassar = name of a main ethnic in Sulawesi, name or the big port and name of the capital city of South Sulawesi province in Indonesia
Marege = named by Macassans to refer to Northern Territory Australia
Padharriba = from Makassar words “pattaripang” means trepang gatherer or sailor
Djapana = while in Yolŋu means sunset dreaming, it means “see you later” or “I’m going”.
Yolŋu mätha = Yolŋu language
galiku = taken from kaliko or calico, refers to the sail or the material of the sail.
gharuru = from Bugis-Makassar words karoroq means materials from woven-palm fiber
dhomala = sometime called djomula. from Makassar words of sombalak = sail
bunŋul = Yolŋu language for cultural activities
bunŋul djäma = doing/practicing cultural activities. In this case, i was dancing and singing
bulaeng = gold, golden. In Yolŋu they called it bulayin
yidaki = didgeridoo

Sullivan+Strumpf acknowledge the Indigenous People of this land, the traditional custodians on whose Country we work, live and learn. We pay respect to Elders, past and present, and recognise their continued connection to culture, land, waters and community.

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