Bankalji

In 2010, when invited to participate in a program at the Art Gallery, Gija artists working through Warmun Art Centre in Western Australia decided to perform the Junba, broadly known as the Gurrir Gurrir, in Sydney for the first time. Patrick Mung Mung, Mabel Juli and the late Phyllis Thomas and Betty Carrington led the performers who enacted the Junba over three consecutive days. This work was among those used within the performance, being carried on the shoulders of the performers at specific moments in the narrative.
The Gurirr Gurirr was originally conceived of by artist Rover Thomas in the mid 1970s following a series of dream visitations by the spirit of an elderly woman who had passed away as a result of a car accident on flooded roads near Warmun caused by Cyclone Tracy. The events relating to the return of the woman’s spirit to the East
Kimberley and the spirits and sites she encountered were ‘given’ to Thomas. These episodes were then translated or interpreted into a Junba by Thomas and senior Gija artists Paddy Jaminji and George Mung Mung. Painted boards revealed at key points were, and remain, central to the Junba.
This work refers to Loomoogool, the blue tongue lizard and the large hill, known as Pompey’s Pillar, at the turnoff to the road that leads to Crocodile Hole, Western Australia. This is the place of Bankalji, the little bird, and it is known as Jimbirla Country. It divides Gija and Miriwoong Country.