Ernabella Arts in South Australia's APY Lands from 1948 reputed as innovative, adaptable in culture, contemporary

Ernabella Arts, at Pukatja, on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in South Australia's far northwest, built a reputation for its innovative artists adapting to many different mediums. At right: Among the Ernabella collection at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra is Kungkarangkalpa Attila by Derek Jungarrayi Thompson.
Images courtesy Enabella Arts Facebook and the National Museum of Australia, Canberra

Ernabella Arts, at Pukatja, the first permanent settlement on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands at the eastern end of the Musgrave Ranges in the far northwest of South Australia, built strong repute as Australia’s oldest continuous indigenous art centre from 1948.

The centre was started as a small craft room within the local Presbyterian mission that began in 1937. The first craft products were hand-loomed woven fabrics and hand-pulled and knotted floor rugs with a unique pattern that became known as the Ernabella walka or anapalayaku walka (Ernabella’s design).

Later, senior women left behind the walka to depict their Tjukurpa (sacred stories of country and law). The centre’s reputation was built on its innovative artists adapting to many different mediums, including a renown for batic works. The craft room evolved into a strong contemporary art centre and a vibrant repository of Anangu culture and heritage.

The artists were a mix of young and old, men and women. The very senior Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara men included National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award winner Dickie Minyintiri who began painting in his nineties.

Ernabella Arts was an Aboriginal-owned and -run corporation from 1974, promoting and supporting ethical practice in creating and selling indigenous art. In 2024, Ernabella Arts received $722,000 in South Australia government funding to extend and refurbish its arts centre.

Ernabella artists were represented in major collections across Australia and the world. The art centre’s relationship with the National Museum of Australia in Canberra’s extended to visits by the Ernabella community, staging performances and forums at the museum and seeing their work on exhibition for the first time. The museum’s early Ernabella collections came from sources including the Aboriginal Arts Board and deaconess Winifred Hilliard, who lived and worked in the mission community for many years.

The national museum's collection included a glazed stoneware pot created by Ernabella artist Derek Jungarrayi Thompson during an artists’ residency at the Big Pot Factory in Jingdezhen, China, in 2013. Jingdezhen, known as Porcelain City, had a history of ceramics over almost 2,000 years. Thompson’s Kungkarangkulpa Attila told part of the epic Seven Sisters Dreaming story in which the sisters travelled to his father’s country near Attila (Mount Conner) before ascending to the sky as the Pleiades constellation.