The vibrancy of the Top End wet season has been captured in a unique collection of paintings by a pair of sisters from a remote community near the southern edge of Arnhem land. Audiences are learning how generations of Aboriginal people have thrived while living off the land, and all the while the sisters are learning about each other.
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00:00 There's two. That's a male with a big claw and this is the female with a little claw.
00:07 We could eat it or we could use it for a bait.
00:18 It's the end of the wet season at Yirrapunga, near the southern edge of Arnhem Land. For
00:23 sisters Rhonda and Margaret Duncan, it's a time of abundance. When the rivers and billabongs
00:29 are full of food.
00:32 We learnt everything from mum, so that when you grow up you know where to go and where
00:36 to get the animals.
00:38 Pigs and buffalo have taken a toll on these systems. It's a loss the two sisters process
00:43 through their art.
00:44 It takes away the anger, the things that you stress about in today's world. We're living
00:51 in two worlds.
00:58 A collection of their work is now being shown at an exhibition in Catherine.
01:02 We want to teach them people to understand how we are and how we live.
01:09 It's not always smooth sailing. When Margaret taught Rhonda how to weave baskets from pandanus,
01:14 there were moments of tension.
01:15 Sometimes we have our little ups and downs as sisters and I said to her, keep going.
01:22 I used to see her and I used to get angry inside.
01:27 Their painting together has brought the sisters closer. Their art also a way to deal with grief.
01:33 We've been helping each other.
01:34 Yeah, for a long time.
01:37 She's been, when she lost her husband she wouldn't just feel lost. But I got her and
01:44 pulled her back. Stop what you're doing, come with me.
01:51 It's hard but life has to go on.
01:56 You've got to carry a load and chuck it in the painting.
02:03 A story of healing in vivid colour.
02:09 A production of the Library of Congress
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