·Bark·Skin·Voice· Past, present, future / ·Purrungupari·Mupurra·Pujinga· Ngini, palinari, amintya

«·Bark·Skin·Voice· Past, present, future / ·Purrungupari·Mupurra·Pujinga· Ngini, palinari, amintya» presents the results of the research that Australian artist Narelle Jubelin, co-curator of the exhibition and resident artist at the museum, has developed. Directly connected to the European Project «Taking Care - Ethnographic and World Cultures Museums as Spaces of Care», Jubelin has examined the important Tiwi collections (northern Australia) preserved in the Museu Etnològic i de Cultures del Món.

It is a vast ensamble of works, which date mainly from the mid-20th Century and are made of polychrome stringybark (eucalyptus tetrodonta). They were used for everyday as well as ritual purposes and were purchased by the museum during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Jubelin has created several audio-visual works centered on these Tiwi artworks, which are distributed along the exhibition room. They show a close and thorough analysis of the Tiwi works, in seach of the marks left by the museum supports used to display them.

In accordance with the objectives of the «Taking Care» Project, that encourages collaboration with the communities of origin of the collections of European ethnographic museums, Jubelin has been working at all times jointly and in close contact with the population from the Tiwi Islands. In this respect, the contributions made by the co-curator Pedro Wonaeamirri, artist and cultural leader from Milikapiti (Melville Island, in the Tiwi Islands), have been a key element to contextualise the objects displayed in the exhibition. Wonaeamirri has provided the clues to decipher the cultural significance, the functions, and the past experiences of those objects; in short, their essence before they became museum pieces.

Besides, the Museu Etnològic i de Cultures del Món has enhanced its Tiwi collections with the purchase of a work by Pedro Wonaeamirri, made in 2021 and displayed in the exhibition. It is a tunga (bark basket), used for daily activities as well as mourning purposes. When comparing it to the rest of the objects in the exhibition, this work proves that the ancient artistic traditions of the Tiwi culture still remain very much alive and have a promising future ahead.