Ninuku Arts Residency

From 23 October to 1 November 2023, Newcastle Art Space was proud to host a cultural exchange with Ninuku Arts, welcoming visiting artists to the new Residency Artist Studio. The artists Yangi Yangi Fox, her daughter Renae Fox, Carol Young, her niece Cassaria Young-Hogan, and Linda Eddy travelled from some of the most remote communities in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. Ninuku Arts is located in Kalka, a desert community in the APY Lands close to the border between South Australia and Western Australia.

Yangi Yangi Fox is a cultural leader and a Board Member of Ninuku Arts. She is also the Deputy Chair and formerly Director of the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women’s Council. She is a celebrated Tjanpi Desert Weaver and exhibits her work nationally and internationally. Each of the artists have carved out their own creative practices. While Ninuku Arts is best known for its painters, it has more recently diversified into creative and contemporary practices in glass, with exhibitions held nationally.

For urban-based Indigenous and non-Indigenous Novocastrians, this visit was a unique opportunity to strengthen and deepen understanding of the complex networks of Anangu culture. The community had the opportunity to meet the artists at Newcastle Art Space at a BBQ lunch held on Saturday 28 October 2023, which included an opportunity to see some of the works in progress produced during their residency in Newcastle.

This exchange and connection between Ninuku Arts and Newcastle Art Space was established by one of our own studio artists, Eila Vinwynn, who was the Manager of the Ninuku Art Centre at the time. The partnership expanded with several artists from Newcastle visiting and volunteering at Ninuku Arts and participating in their bush trips to country — a core focus of Ninuku Arts' cultural program.