Jarrag nimbirn boorro0 mawoondoom

Warmun Arts Centre, Swinburne’s Centre for Transformative Media Technologies,
Western Australian Museum, Goolarri Media and Gija Rangers

Jarrag nimbirn-boorroo mawoondoom, which loosely translates as ‘Talking about Ochre’ is a participatory documentary short film made with members of the Gija community in Warmun, East Kimberley, Western Australia. In 2018, Warmun Art Centre was invited by the Western Australian Museum to develop innovative digital content for the permanent Continuous Culture Wing, opening in 2020. Gija artists are renowned for their use of ochres in painting and other cultural practices, sourced on their traditional lands. These natural clay pigments were chosen as the rich subject matter and storytelling medium to be explored in the film.

The film was conceived as a vehicle for the preservation and revitalisation of cultural heritage, intergenerational and intercultural collaboration, media training and knowledge transfer. I was invited by the art centre to manage the storyboarding, filming production and post production, facilitate creative programs and co-develop animated content in line with cultural protocols with young folk and media workers. By combining varied representational strategies (live action, still imagery, animation, soundscapes), cultural traditions and differentials of skills or access to knowledge could be explored according to Gija ways of ‘talking’ and sharing.

 The stories shared in this film focus on the extraction process (digging), processing (grinding and mixing) and use of ochre (painting), and in joonba (dance). Varied media (such as stop motion) were combined with often seemingly unrelated video footage edited together to create a subjective film experience that captures the interconnectedness of Gija life, cycle of time, kin relations and cultural traditions.