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The work of UWA scientists, Indigenous artists and benevolent alumni will come together in exhibitions in Alice Springs and Nevada over the next few years. Desert Lake is a project centred on a remarkable desert wetland in the southeast Kimberley region. To Indigenous people, including its traditional owners, it is known as Paruku; non-Indigenous Australians know it as Lake Gregory.

The project, which includes the Waterways Education Program (WEP) for the Kimberley developed by UWA’s Tropical Rivers and Coastal Knowledge (TRaCK) program, has explored the aesthetic, scientific and traditional values of Paruku, injected funds into the local Indigenous art centre and incorporated education for local children.

Research Assistant Professor Rebecca Dobbs from UWA’s Centre of Excellence in Natural Resource Management has been involved in the WEP program, with the WA Department of Water, since 2009. Artist Mandy Martin was keen to work with the traditional owners and bring the Dreaming, the science and the art of the area together. She enlisted the help of social enterprise entrepreneur David Rickards and his friend, UWA graduate Basil Mcilhagga and others, including the Macquarie Foundation, who supported the project, underwriting it for $100,000.

It incorporated UWA’s development of a waterway monitoring plan. Led by Professor Dobbs, it will put in place a long-term program to monitor and manage the Paruku waterway, an arid-zone wetland of international significance.

The entire community of Paruku was involved. Even the Paruku Rangers started creating art, which was a first in their community. Their paintings explain the science of the wetland, and the venture linked satellite imagery used for mapping, introduced school children to the concept of mapping and combined the satellite imagery with Dreaming stories and dot painting techniques.

The rich cross-cultural collaborative project has resulted in a book, Desert Lake: Art Science and Stories from Paruku , published by CSIRO Publishing, a DVD, website as well as the exhibition in Alice Springs from March next year.

The entire Paruku art collection has been bought by donors for the Nevada Museum of Art and suplemented with artworks donated by the visiting artists and the project DVD and archive where it will be installed in the Center for Art + Environment in 2015.

Published in UWA News , 12 November 2012