Darwin 2025
One of the best experiences in Australian art is Darwin during the second week of August. The nominal highlight is the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA), sponsored by Telstra, and eagerly anticipated every year by artists from communities across the continent. The $190,000 contributed by the telco, including $100,000 for the major prize, makes the NATSIAA the richest art competition in Australia, which sounds impressive until we read that Telstra has just signed a six-year deal with the National Rugby League worth $90 million. Multiply the NATSIAA beneficence by six and that comes to $1,140,000, which makes the NRL sponsorship roughly 79 times more valuable.
I know it’s not a fair comparison but the numbers sound about right. I imagine the average Aussie might be 79 times more likely to watch a footy match than attend an art exhibition. Perhaps they just need to come to Darwin and see how much good art, and good will, may be crammed into a few days in the top end.
As is so often the case with these big competitions the artist who seemed most unlucky to have missed out last year, emerged on top this time around. In the 2024 NATSIAA, Gaypalani Wanambi’s engraved metal work, River of Honey, currently on display in the Yolngu Power exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW, was arguably the stand-out. This time, Gaypalani was the winner, with an even larger work, Burwu, blossom, a 3 by 3 metre composite panel suspended from the ceiling. Comprised of discarded road signs left intact on the verso to form a kind of Pop collage, the front of the work is polished steel, covered in delicate engravings of blossoms.