Nici Cumpston

Barkandji people, New South Wales

This series of photographs was created on a group day trip through Old Mutawintji Gorge in late July 2022. Mutawintji is a place of great cultural significance to all Barkandji/Barkindji peoples and many neighbouring groups. For millennia we have gathered here, at this permanent place of water, for cultural activities such as marriages, initiations, ceremony, and trade.

We followed the creek bed, negotiating sandy patches and clambering up and down rocky outcrops. Making our way into the gorge I was empowered by a sense of collective pride. We were in awe of the beauty and power of our Country and could sense the presence of our Ancestors through the ancient rock art all around us. Their energy guided and protected us.

I walked slowly along the creek bed and let the others forge ahead. This time alone with my camera enabled me to watch the light and capture the beauty of this ancient land. I could hear everyone high in the under crofts.

Their chatter and laughter was a joyous sound ringing through the gorge.

For me, this body of work is alive with this memory, it makes me happy.

These black and white photographs are printed on watercolour paper and hand coloured. I shape the colour that fills my prints through revisiting memories of this time and place. It is a meditative process and offers an opportunity to reflect on time spent learning from each other and our precious Country. When I look at this work, I think of us all mirrimpilyi, happy and contented.

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These hand coloured photographs were taken in a very special cultural place for our people, called Mutawintji, where we have always gathered for celebrations and ceremony. When I look at this work, I remember our time together on Country and feel happy. I think of us all mirrimpilyi, happy and contented.

 
 

  • Nici Cumpston is simultaneously an artist, a curator, a writer, and an educator. Her family are of Barkandji, Afghan, Irish and English descent and she currently lives and works in Adelaide on Kaurna Country. 

    Cumpston studied fine arts, specialising in Photography at the University of South Australia, and has worked as a lecturer at Tauondi Aboriginal Community College, Port Adelaide, as well as at the University of South Australia. She commenced as the inaugural Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) in 2008 and has been the Artistic Director of Tarnanthi Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at AGSA since its inception in 2014. 

    She has exhibited her works of art since 1998 and has been invited to participate in many prestigious art awards and artist residencies as well as group and solo exhibitions. In 2014 she travelled to the USA as an artist in residence and held a solo exhibition, having been there, at Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, as well as a solo exhibition at Harvey Art Projects in Ketchum, Idaho. In 2018 she travelled to Berlin for the exhibition Indigenous Australia: Masterworks from the National Gallery of Australia, at me Collectors Room, and had a solo exhibition Calling In at Michael Reid Gallery, Berlin. Her work is held in major institutions and private collections both nationally and internationally.  

    Cumpston combines her time curating, collaborating, and creating photographic works that share stories of Aboriginal occupation and ongoing survival on Country.  

Nici Cumpston at Lake Menindee, 2022 
Photo by Raymond Zada 

 

Old Mutawintji Gorge I – VII
from the series mirrimpilyi, happy and contented
2023
Adelaide, Kaurna Country
pigment inkjet prints on Hahnemühle paper, hand coloured with PanPastels, crayons and pencils
(I-II) (VI-VII) 44.0 x 120.0 cm (each); (III-V) 120.0 x 44.0 cm (each)

All works courtesy the artist and Michael Reid Gallery.

Nici Cumpston, Zena Cumpston, David Doyle, Kent Morris, Adrianne Semmens, Raymond Zada
Barkandji/Barkindji/Malyangapa people, New South Wales

nets
2023
Broken Hill, Wilyakali Country
Adelaide, Kaurna Country
Melbourne, Wurundjeri Country

spiny-headed sedge (Cyperus gymnocaulos)
(1-2) 50.0 x 300.0 cm (each) (variable)

Courtesy the artists.
Photography by Christian Capurro at Bunjil Place Gallery, 2023.

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Zena Cumpston