An exhibition called “Balgo: Contemporary Australian Art from the Balgo Hills†will open at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, Nguyen Van Huyen Street, Hanoi on April 17. The event is a part of a program organized by the Australian Embassy called once in 1,000 years: An Australian Gift to Hanoi.
The art work in this exhibition conveys the energy and dynamism of the artists of the Warlayirti Artists Art Centre in the Balgo Hills region of Western Australia.
The small community of Balgo, known in the Kukatja language as Wirrimanu, is one of Australia’s most remote settlements. The painters from Balgo include a generation of tribal elders who grew up in a context of customary tribal law. They know well about their inherited country and of associated stories and ceremonies of the mythic Tjukurrpa, so they paint in a new and vital art form that blends the ancient with the contemporary, the abstract with representations of landscapes and the spiritual with the political.
Consisting of contemporary paintings and etchings, this exhibition presents a range of stories that demonstrate the strong connection between aboriginal people and their traditions which are being maintained and celebrated today.
Free tickets are available at the Australian Embassy, 8 Dao Tan Street., Ba Dinh District, Hanoi.
The exhibition runs until May 12.