Canning Stock Route art beats a path to Perth

West Australians have the chance to see the award winning new exhibition, Yiwarra Kuju: The Canning Stock Route which is open to the public after providing the cultural backdrop to last week's Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

  • Award-winning exhibition is free to the public at convention centre

  • Project received State Government grants of more than $1.2million

  • Delegates were provided the opportunity to visit during CHOGM

West Australians have the chance to see the award winning new exhibition, Yiwarra Kuju: The Canning Stock Route which is open to the public after providing the cultural backdrop to last week's Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

 

Culture and the Arts Minister John Day said the exhibition began as the Canning Stock Route Project.

"Yiwarra Kuju - or 'one road' was a partnership between Perth-based cultural organisation FORM and 10 remote Aboriginal art and culture centres in the north of the State," Mr Day said.

"It set out to explore for the first time the history of the century-old, 2,000km stock route that runs from Wiluna to Halls Creek, crossing three deserts along the way." 

The Minister said the project was delivered through a collaboration between the State and Federal governments, the Indigenous Land Corporation, cultural groups, corporate supporters such as BHP Billiton and Bankwest, and the community.

"The State Government provided more than $1.2million in grants and funding to the project through Lotterywest, and the Department of Culture and the Arts which included early assistance from the Western Australian Museum," he said.

"Yiwarra Kuju went on show at the National Museum of Australia for six months and when it closed in January this year, it had been the most successful temporary exhibition in the history of the museum, attracting more than 120,000 visitors."   

The original project involved an intercultural team of emerging Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal curators, photographers and film makers working with the artists to tell the uniquely WA story of the Canning Stock Route through art, oral history, photographs and new media.

      Fact File

  • A companion publication, Ngurra Kuju Walyja - One Country, One People - Stories from the Canning Stock Route will also be launched

  • Yiwarra Kuju: The Canning Stock Route is a free exhibition at the PCEC

  • For more information visit http://www.canningstockrouteproject.com

  • Exhibition open until November 27, 2011

Minister's office - 9213 6600