Who has the right to make Wandjina imagery?
Although there is a wealth of ethnographic data to attest to the practice of repainting of Wandjina and other rock art within rock shelters, contemporary repainting has met with considerable controversy. For example, when in 1987 a group of Ngarinyin people from the western Kimberley repainted some of the rock art sites in the Gibb River area, a longstanding public debate ensued. The repainting was done by young men and women from the western Kimberley who were engaged on an Australian Federal Government employment scheme. The debate is briefly touched on here as it has strong contemporary resonances, revolving around ownership of Indigenous imagery and who has the right to reproduce it.[
42] In brief, critics of the Ngarinyin repainting argued
that it was not undertaken in a traditional context, was not executed by the appropriate aged and gendered members of the community, involved the use of non-traditional materials and did not conform to traditional style. The most vocal of the detractors were non-Indigenous rock art experts, who argued that the Kimberley painted sites were a
universal heritage and Indigenous people should not have the
sole right to make decisions about their repainting.[
43]
On the opposing side of the debate were those like the Indigenous cultural leader Mowaljarli, who argued that the Wandjina paintings were not ‘art’ and therefore the concerns about aesthetics were irrelevant. Others commenting on the political subtext of the debate stated that ‘all human art is part of a dynamic experience and if we are going to oppose repainting we are condemning Aboriginal art to the status of cultural relic’[
44], and that contemporary Indigenous livelihoods and cultural continuity should take precedence over ‘heritage’.[
45] The argument that repainting was undertaken by people of inappropriate age and gender was also shown to be a contentious one. Early anthropological records demonstrate that women could, and did, participate in painting and
retouching of rock art in the Kimberley. Most early ethnographic work was carried out by male anthropologists, who not surprisingly documented painting as a male pursuit; however, Kaberry, one of the few female anthropologists to undertake field-based research into women’s roles in Indigenous Kimberley societies,[
46] specifically referred to women’s ceremonies and women’s involvement in repainting.[
47]
Today, Wandjina art is produced by men and women of all ages and production and sales are coordinated through artist cooperatives such as the Mowanjum Spirit of the Wandjina Corporation.[
48] Indigenous artists working within such cooperatives and individually are also protected to some extent from unfair appropriation of images by copyright law.[
49] Indigenous artists have successfully pursued claims for damages against those infringing copyright.[
50] This has been particularly clear-cut when an individual’s paintings have been directly reproduced on commercial products. Less straightforward are cases where styles or designs that are regarded as collectively owned are reproduced. In the case of Wandjina art, where the contemporary artists are taking inspiration from images that
are believed to have created themselves and where they are reproduced to reinforce Indigenous customary law rather than for individual benefit, issues of copyright are less clear-cut.[51] It is, however, generally agreed within the Indigenous community that only Indigenous artists who claim descent through one of the linguistic groups traditionally associated with the Wandjina should be able to reproduce these images. Reaction to the emergence of the Perth Wandjina graffiti exemplifies this moral response to ‘rights’.
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