Ampilatwatja, located 320km north-east of Alice Springs in Central Australia, is a "Prescribed Community" under the NT Intervention introduced in 2007 and home for less than 1000 Alyawarr Aboriginal people. Many in Amplilatwatja consider as "an invasion, total disempowerment and revoking hard won land rights". In July 2009, the Alyawarr people of Ampilatwatja walked off from the Prescribed Area controlled by the government, and began to build a new community on their...
more »Ampilatwatja, located 320km north-east of Alice Springs in Central Australia, is a "Prescribed Community" under the NT Intervention introduced in 2007 and home for less than 1000 Alyawarr Aboriginal people. Many in Amplilatwatja consider as "an invasion, total disempowerment and revoking hard won land rights". In July 2009, the Alyawarr people of Ampilatwatja walked off from the Prescribed Area controlled by the government, and began to build a new community on their homeland with the support of Aboriginal and non Aboriginal Australians.
During my many walks around the community I noticed that almost all Aboriginal families in the community had a make shift bed in open air. My queries about the use of these outdoor beds were met with replies in which the words such as stars, sky, trees, breeze echoed again and again. This photo series, 'Stars Sky Trees Breeze', in my mind is a reflection of the conflict between colonizer-imposed confines of a house and fences on one hand and on the other, the unbreakable bond of the aboriginal people with the land and nature in their traditional way of life.
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