A major exhibition at Burrinja Cultural Centre, created in collaboration with Warlukurlangu Artists and Patrick Waterhouse.
A collaboration by Warlukurlangu Artists and Patrick Waterhouse.
Patrick Waterhouse and Guy Hayes, Nyirripi, Oct 2015.
When this project was forming, I was living in Nyirripi, a small Warlpiri community west of Yuendumu. Life there revolved around the art centre. Mornings began with conversation, the sound of brushes moving across canvas, and copious amounts of tea. Art was not a separate practice. It was how people shared story, remembered Country, stayed connected, and made a living.
During those years, British artist Patrick Waterhouse visited on and off with boxes of paper from European archives. Maps, flags, photographs, school charts, and official forms arrived on the tables where grandparents, aunties, and kids were painting. The paper felt fragile and heavy at the same time. In the hands of Warlpiri artists, those documents became a ground for response.
About the Exhibition
Revisions: made by the Warlpiri of Central Australia and Patrick Waterhouse runs at Burrinja Cultural Centre from 25 October 2025 to 1 March 2026. It brings together more than a decade of collaboration between artists in Yuendumu and Nyirripi and the London-based artist. The works include altered maps, flags, photographs, and documents that ask how Australia has been seen, measured, and described, and by whom.
Pauline Napangardi Gallagher revising a work for the Revisions project, Oct 2015.
The project is not decoration over history and not a tidy correction. It is a new record made through dialogue between archive and Country. Dots move across a geological grid. Patterns settle over a portrait. Symbols sit on top of flags and school charts. The familiar forms of the colonial record remain visible, yet they are joined by the marks of kinship, story, and Law.
Murdie Nampijinpa Morris revises the British flag for the Revisions Project.
Works that Stay with You
A nineteenth-century geological map revised with Pauline Napangardi Gallagher turns from extractive plan to living topography. A portrait reworked with Ruth Nungarrayi Spencer balances protection and declaration. Each piece changes the meaning of evidence. The viewer meets two systems of knowledge in the same frame and is asked to consider what should be seen and what should be held within community.
“When white explorers created their maps, they dissected this land with arbitrary lines and imposed state borders. They did not understand the diversity of nations and tribal people inhabiting this country. They did not know of our own stories, songlines, boundaries, and nations.”
His words sit close to the centre of this exhibition. Old lines remain. New lines speak back. The page becomes an encounter, not a measurement.
From the Desert to Europe and Back
Parts of the project have travelled widely. In Whitby, the English port from which Captain Cook first sailed for the Antipodes, the works met an audience surrounded by the relics of exploration. Reviewers noted how the paintings brought an Aboriginal sense of Country into a European frame. In Cologne and Antwerp, the series was read as a reconsideration of how mapping, photography, and representation might coexist. Here in Australia the conversation feels complete. The artists who made the work can stand beside it, and the Country that shaped it is present in the room.
Warlukurlangu and the Strength of Continuity
Warlukurlangu Artists, established in 1985, remains one of Central Australia’s most vital Aboriginal-owned art centres. Its name means “belonging to fire.” Across Yuendumu and Nyirripi, the centre has long been a place where artists of all generations work side by side. Children learn by watching. Stories are taught through practice rather than lecture. The works in Revisions reflect this steady way of learning and making.
When I think back to those years in Nyirripi, I remember the rhythm of the place. The laughter. The careful talk around the tables. Paint drying in the afternoon heat. The project grew from that daily work. It took time, patience, and trust.
Moving Image
The exhibition includes The True Story, a two-channel installation narrated by members of the Warlpiri community. It moves between European archives and desert life and asks what history chooses to include and what it leaves out. The companion documentary Making Revisions shows the process itself. You can see how images return to community use, and how decisions are made in conversation rather than instruction.
Community Program Day
The main day to meet the collaborators is Sunday 23 November 2025. The program runs from 10:30 am to 3:30 pm and includes:
- Welcome to Country and Smoking Ceremony with Wurundjeri curator Stacie Piper
- Presentation by Warlukurlangu Manager, Cecilia Alfonso: 40 Years of Warlukurlangu Artists of Yuendumu
- Screening of The True Story with Q&A
- Revisions Retold exhibition tour with Warlpiri artists and Patrick Waterhouse
- Painting workshop for all ages
Visit Details
- Venue: Burrinja Cultural Centre
- Dates: 25 October 2025 – 1 March 2026
- Official Opening: Saturday 25 October 2025 at 2:00 pm
- Community Program Day: Sunday 23 November 2025, 10:30 am to 3:30 pm
A Conversation that Continues
Revisions is not only about the past. It shows what can happen when stories are shared with respect and time. The Warlpiri artists did not erase the archive. They expanded it. What began in Nyirripi now stands on Victorian ground with care and clarity. The works speak quietly and with authority. They remind us that history is not fixed and that those who lived it are still here to revise it.
Waiting For The Transit Of Venus. Revised with Hilda Nakamarra Rogers. 2014-2018
